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Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

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Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#451

Post by justinclift »

Mistletoe wrote: post #16
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…

I’m realizing maybe I should just use Amazon or iCloud AND Google Photos for backing up my images. My whole life is in Google Photos. I could lose it from something stupid and never even have a person to contact about that.

It's good you're realising it now, before you lose the lot as has happened to others.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#452

Post by Sweepi »

miki123211 wrote: post #386
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…

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…

Why cant they give a task which is reasonable for a real customer, e.g. show up with ID in an apple store and lets us reserve $100 on your credit card to unlock an account which is under investigation immediately? This is not more surveillance - Apple already knows the real name of their customer.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#453

Post by Sweepi »

refactor_master wrote: post #413
beeflet wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So now every fraudster with $5 appears legitimate? Remember blue check marks? The EU is not happy about those. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

"On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified' status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with."

As stated in you source the EU is (among other things) not happy about Twitter calling users 'verified' while the meaning of 'verified' switched from "we did sth. to make sure the account owner is indeed the thing/person they say they are" to "the account owner is paying a monthly fee".

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#454

Post by nottorp »

brewdad wrote: post #374
nottorp wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't using it for much so I just took it as a warning I should get off my ass and de google. ... which hasn't happened, but maybe once every 3 months I move another service to logging in with an email on my personal domain ...

I recently ran into a situation where a service I absolutely must use and has no alternative (think government provided service) would only accept a Gmail domain for registration. Any other domain would fail registration with no useful error message. This really shouldn't be allowed in this day and age but I'm effectively powerless to change it. DeGoogling is hard.

I wonder if your government also has a declaratively nationalist discourse.

I mean, it's great to be independent, just make your infrastructure rely on the services of an US based company...

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#455

Post by criddell »

astrange wrote: post #162
criddell wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the companies are too big to provide reasonable levels of support for their users, then the companies are simply too big.

A smaller company is even less able to deal with fraud. You wouldn't have the product at all.

Maybe, but I think that's probably okay.

You can't launch your boutique credit card and refuse to refund fraudulent charges with the excuse that you are too small to do so.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#456

Post by coldtea »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #354
logifail wrote: post #278

I suspect the underlying problem is that the gap between legitimate use of gift cards and fraudulent use of gift cards is just not very large... Years ago I briefly played around with "manufactured spend" (on credit cards, to earn frequent flyer miles). There was one specific loophole, with one specific gift card provider, and it was a doozy. You could earn credit card points on spend, plus supermarket loyalty points…

> but it would take some time to explain exactly why not... Not really: "I'm churning credit cards for the rewards points. Here is the receipts where I use $10k from account A to purchase $10k worth of gift cards. Here is the statements where I deposit $10k of gift cards into account B. Here is the statement for the $10k wire from B to A. And here are the receipts for the next round of gift cards I purchased. Any fur…

The time will be taken with your accounts frozen, the bank non responsive, and probably before of a judge to help you restore them.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#457

Post by coldtea »

tristor wrote: post #364
logifail wrote: post #278

I suspect the underlying problem is that the gap between legitimate use of gift cards and fraudulent use of gift cards is just not very large... Years ago I briefly played around with "manufactured spend" (on credit cards, to earn frequent flyer miles). There was one specific loophole, with one specific gift card provider, and it was a doozy. You could earn credit card points on spend, plus supermarket loyalty points…

> it dawned on me that what I was doing was basically indistinguishable from money laundering. Of course it was NOT money laundering But it is money laundering, that's what manufacturing spend is. It's not money laundering to hide evidence of a crime, but it is money laundering for the purpose of hiding the fact that you didn't engage in commerce in the process of spending money on a credit card to earn a reward. It'…

That's not what money laundering means. Where was the illegal activity that led to the money's existance? He just used a rewards loophole, didn't clean anything of actual "dirty" origin.

Not engaging in commerce to earn rewards isn't illegal, it's just an oversight on their part.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#458

Post by coldtea »

xp84 wrote: post #133
DannyPage wrote: post #14

> Update 18 December 2025: We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obvi…

Banks can’t legally just take your money and lock you out permanently. There are some actual regulations. Plus they have a proper handle on your actual human identity, which means you ought to always have a route to going somewhere in person and proving you’re the rightful owner of your money. “Online” accounts have zero regulatory requirements, plus many of them aren’t necessarily directly paid-for, so they frame th…

>Banks can’t legally just take your money and lock you out permanently.

Yeah, not permanently, only near "effectively" so...

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#459

Post by coldtea »

ryandrake wrote: post #56
estimator7292 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse. You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.

What I want to know is why does it always have to go straight from 0 to 100? There's seemingly no concept of proportion. For most online services, your account can be in one of two states: Totally good and "banned for life". There's no warning, no investigative period, no concept of scale (was the fraud $10 or $10,000?), no way to serve your time and come back if you actually were bad. It's just instant, silent BAN H…

>What I want to know is why does it always have to go straight from 0 to 100? There's seemingly no concept of proportion.

Because anything else would require them to spend resources to examine your case and claims more deeply (to find the appropriate level of response), and they don't want to spend them, plus they don't care.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#460

Post by coldtea »

tuetuopay wrote: post #119
estimator7292 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse. You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.

Well for banks your account is usually tied to a local brick-and-mortar agency, where it's definitely someone's problem if a customer comes in and refuses to leave. It's one of the reasons I'll never go with fully online banks.

>It's one of the reasons I'll never go with fully online banks.

Offline banks are increasingly phased out in many places (closing branches, limiting options, strick appointment only visits, reducing stuff, etc).

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