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Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

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Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#421

Post by sneak »

QuiEgo wrote: post #177
sneak wrote: post #24

I've been using all of my macs for years now without Apple IDs. I use them only reluctantly on iOS devices to install apps, and don't use iCloud (it's a privacy nightmare). Relying on Apple to remain benevolent when the incentives are so misaligned is a fool's errand.

What do you use instead?

I use syncthing to synchronize my computers and I use Ente to store and sync my photos.

My computer files aren’t on my phone or vice versa.

I use IMAP email so it’s accessible on both.

I use Signal instead of iMessage.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#422

Post by LexiMax »

levanten wrote: post #410
miki123211 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put this as plainly as I possibly can: 1. It is objectively true that Apple and Google accounts are extremely important to many people. 2. It is also objectively true that most users will only need one of each, a few at most. Fraudsters have no such limitations, and may want to create thousands of them per day if the possibility arises. 3. Therefore, it's likely that a significant percentage of all accounts ever c…

None of this prevents them from providing proper customer service that can resolve cases of false positives.

It is kind of astonishing to me that the entire chain of logic was put together without "The company could invest in better customer service to resolve disputed identity" as a third possibility.

It was certainly my first priority for an e-mail provider when I started to de-Google my life.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#423

Post by sneak »

wat10000 wrote: post #64
sneak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. No, the real problem is that we have no reasonable alternatives when companies misbehave. There is no meaningful way to exist in society today without an Apple or Google account, and that's actually insane. It's doubly insane for people who aren't citizens of the United States (although the CCP addressed this…

China is quite a bit worse. Not having an Apple or Google account in the US would be kind of inconvenient. Not having WeChat Pay or AliPay in China means you can't buy stuff most places. They've ensured that their de-facto-mandatory services are domestic, but they're a lot more mandatory. I assume the Chinese government is quite happy with this, because they have no trouble bringing their large companies to heel, unl…

The US also has no trouble bringing their large companies into line.

Apple willingly preserves a backdoor in the e2ee of iMessage for the FBI et al in the form of effectively unencrypted iCloud Backups.

The whole “Apple won’t decrypt stuff for the FBI” narrative is farce.

Post Snowden, all the tech CEOs met in person with Obama to do damage control, as they all had some serious credibility problems once the reality of FAA702 (warrantless one click direct access, aka PRISM, aka the #1 source for the IC) came to light.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#424

Post by moogly »

beeflet wrote: post #391
miki123211 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put this as plainly as I possibly can: 1. It is objectively true that Apple and Google accounts are extremely important to many people. 2. It is also objectively true that most users will only need one of each, a few at most. Fraudsters have no such limitations, and may want to create thousands of them per day if the possibility arises. 3. Therefore, it's likely that a significant percentage of all accounts ever c…

charge 5$ for the ability to send your first iMessage. problem solved.

Now Apple has a financial incentive to let more fraudsters in. Great job.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#425

Post by rationalist »

FireBeyond wrote: post #407
lvl155 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that basically screws over loyal Apple customers who trade in an entire family’s worth of iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macbooks, etc over the years. Sometimes you just take a giftcard because you don’t want to buy a new thing. Fast forward a couple of years, you basically learn that you traded in your Macbook Pro for nothing. How’s that not a controversy? Perhaps they should give customers non-transferable stor…

Ashley Home Furniture is an expert at this. Throw in gift cards all over the place to incentivize purchases. Go to use a gift card, "Sorry, gift cards can only be used to pay for full price items, not discounted or sale items". Conveniently, effectively everything in the store is discounted or on sale. That would be bad enough as-is. But you move houses, or are moving out for the first time, and someone buys you a gi…

Diabolical.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#426

Post by rationalist »

moffkalast wrote: post #339
wrxd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you never start you'll never be free. It's also not all or nothing. You can keep things with Google, self-host new stuff and gradually move over things that make sense to mover over.

How does one self host an email server these days and not get flagged into oblivion?

At least use a service with actual customer support like Fastmail, and backup your email with an email client that downloads copies of your email to your computer.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#427

Post by rationalist »

qingcharles wrote: post #221
nottorp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have access to the recovery email for a secondary google account but it didn't have a phone number attached so I lost it when they turned on 2FA.

Normally I resolve these things by buying all the executive phone numbers and working my way through the phonebook, but Google is the one I've had no success on with this so far.

Any tips on how to do this? (Facebook in my case)

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#428

Post by rationalist »

Habgdnv wrote: post #118
Apreche wrote: post #18

The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. Even if they have real humans to talk to, they simply follow a script. Those agents do not have the ability to investigate a situation or the power to use their discretion to take meaningful action. We should impose, by law, the following rules on all companies that offer accounts to their customers. 1. If they…

And also it would be good to limit the ban duration with a law. For example manslaughter can be 5 years in prison. So if google decide to ban your account because you send your doctor a photo of your son for medical purposes, they are not allowed to ban you for more than 5 years and then they must restore full access to your account.

How about, if they ban someone, they must give their evidence to the government to prosecute the alleged crime, and if the government refuses (within X time) or loses, then the account is restored.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#429

Post by ethbr1 »

gruez wrote: post #387
firefax wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this ages ago to build up airline points and take a nice trip to the EU. Back then, the trick was to get a generic Vanilla Visa or other prepaid credit card. A recent legal ruling meant they had to be run as a debit card for... reasons... I forget them. But a lot of grocery stores would sell you a money order up to 500 bucks for under a dollar with a debit card (not a credit card). So you'd call up the issuer a…

>Back then, the trick was to get a generic Vanilla Visa or other prepaid credit card. A recent legal ruling meant they had to be run as a debit card for... reasons... I forget them. Interchange fees, probably. Otherwise the credit card companies is taking a 2-3% cut. >So you'd call up the issuer and have them issue it a PIN. Then you'd run it as a debit card and buy a 500 dollar money order. I don't know how this eve…

> considering that "cash-like transactions" are counted as cash advances, same as if you were to use your credit card at an ATM

Afaik, gift cards are more like fixed balance debit cards that happen to be runnable over a specific payment network (e.g. VISA, MC, AMEX) as credit cards

But at least a fair number of them will allow you to set a PIN, which then allows their use as normal debit cards

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#430

Post by ethbr1 »

xp84 wrote: post #127
srmatto wrote: post #10

This fiasco stirs up a lot of different topics for me, none of which seem like they are likely to be resolved anytime soon. First, with so much importance placed on an Apple/iCloud account in our current era it's not good that they can be shutdown so trivially. Someone can be shut out from using Messages, Apple Wallet, Digital Identification (depending on where they live) and all their subscriptions and media purchas…

Absolutely. The current level of service these companies provide is functionally identical to what would have existed 25 years ago. Losing your Apple account would have been a minor annoyance - the relationship involved trivial amounts of money, and wasn’t deeply integrated into anyone’s lives. Even if you lost an email address, losing access to it wouldn’t have locked you out of hundreds of important accounts, and a…

To say nothing of weaponized account locking.

I shudder to think how vulnerable the current system would be to intentional denial of identity via other parties tripping fraud systems on an account.

Say, while the target was traveling?

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