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Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

hey.paris

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Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#991

Post by Yizahi »

quickthrowman wrote: post #587
quinncom wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of that Reddit post. I should probably update it to clarify that I didn’t just purchase the gift cards, but also redeemed them. I don’t think it was purchasing them that triggered the lock on my Apple account. I mean, after all, how would they know what my Apple account is until they’re redeemed?

I’m not trying to be rude, but what is the point of buying and then redeeming gift cards yourself? I just pay Apple with my credit card when I want to buy something. Is this some kind of weird credit card rewards churning thing? Are you unbanked? I don’t understand why you’d voluntarily add unnecessary extra steps. A credit card offers far more protections to consumers than a gift card. Given the amount of false posi…

I've bought and redeemed gift cards for only one single company ever. Can you guess what company? :) Exactly - Apple. Because these MFs generously banned whole countries from using their services, and not because of the justified sanctions or a law, but simply because they could. So when I lived in Ukraine and got my first Apple device, I had to buy and use gift cards to purchase any app or media in the Apple's closed system.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#992

Post by mmmlinux »

cedws wrote: post #754
x3sphere wrote: post #32

It's just insane that a gift card redemption can trigger this. What's the rationale? It would make more sense if they just locked the person out of redeeming gift cards or something, not the entire account. But reading horror stories like this is is why I only use the very bare minimum of any of these cloud services. Keep local copies of everything. For developer accounts, I always create them under a separate email…

Apple is perfectly happy to take money from criminals though. My grandmother bought some Apple gift cards from a supermarket which turned out to be fake. The cards on display had been replaced/modified in a way that upon purchasing them it activated another card held by the criminals. Apple refused to take responsibility and so did the supermarket. Gift cards are loved by scammers as a way to receive and launder mone…

At what point in this transaction did Apple have your money to return?

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#994

Post by BeauGiles »

quickthrowman wrote: post #587
quinncom wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of that Reddit post. I should probably update it to clarify that I didn’t just purchase the gift cards, but also redeemed them. I don’t think it was purchasing them that triggered the lock on my Apple account. I mean, after all, how would they know what my Apple account is until they’re redeemed?

I’m not trying to be rude, but what is the point of buying and then redeeming gift cards yourself? I just pay Apple with my credit card when I want to buy something. Is this some kind of weird credit card rewards churning thing? Are you unbanked? I don’t understand why you’d voluntarily add unnecessary extra steps. A credit card offers far more protections to consumers than a gift card. Given the amount of false posi…

In Australia, we often have bonus offers on Apple Gift Cards, from the merchant/retailer.

This could include a "real" cash discount of ~8-10% (eg, buy a $100 card for $92), or loyalty points.

Our supermarkets often have a "20x" bonus points promotion, which is effectively 10% off a future shop - eg, buy a $100 Apple gift card, get $10 off a future shop in loyalty points. Buy $1000, get $100 off, etc.

Or, if you're a frequent flyer, earn Qantas points - buy a $2000 gift card, get 20,000 in QFF points - that on its own is some one way/return domestic flights, or halfway to Honolulu (one way), if you were going to spend $2000 on a new iPhone, Mac, iCloud etc anyway.

https://gcdb.com.au/gc/apple/ has been documenting all the recent offers for Australia.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#995

Post by da_grift_shift »

Update posted at https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/:

    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.

    Obviously it’s unacceptable that this can happen, and I’m still trying to get more information out of him, but at least things are now mostly working.

    Strangely, he did tell me to only ever buy gift cards from Apple themselves; I asked if that means Apple’s supply chain of Blackhawk Network, InComm, and other gift card vendors is insecure, and he was unwilling to comment.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#996

Post by widowlark »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #406

> I am not a casual user. I have literally written the book on Apple development (taking over the Learning Cocoa with Objective-C series, which Apple themselves used to write, for O’Reilly Media, and then 20+ books following that). I help run the longest-running Apple developer event not run by Apple themselves, /dev/world. I have effectively been an evangelist for this company’s technology for my entire professional…

or the common sense to not store absolutely everything they own with one giant megacorp

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#997

Post by queenkjuul »

monerozcash wrote: post #586
macNchz wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in my circles in the US (in an area with tons of alternative options) look at me like I have two heads when I say we don’t have Prime and never shop on Amazon. For many, I think, Amazon has simply been the default option to buy anything for long enough now that it’s ingrained muscle memory.

Big part of that is just that it's insanely easy to use compared to most of the competition. But still, most people go to the shop to buy toilet paper. Once you get used to Amazon, it just saves so much time and effort. The prices aren't bad either, I just checked toilet paper on amazon.com and 30 rolls of good quality amazonbasics toilet paper costs $0.22 more than the equivalent kirkland product on costco.com You c…

I disagree, the sheer volume of fake products, misleading descriptions, and fake reviews make it drastically harder to use than other sites. When i order from Target I get what i wanted, every time. I can't say that about Amazon.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#998

Post by [deleted] »

tonymet wrote: post #859
singleshot_ wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't they boot him for a ToS violation? > Any lawyer can file a complaint in small claims . No, in many states _no_ lawyer can file a complaint (except his own) in small claims court.

They booted him for TOs violation, that was their action. A judge can decide whether that action was a breach of the contract, or if the contract itself is lawful. We live in a common law country. It means that the judgement defines the law, not contracts (and not even statute, strictly)

[deleted]

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#999

Post by KPGv2 »

lapcat wrote: post #433
pavel_lishin wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does iOS?

The operating system does not. The App Store does, and unfortunately on iOS the App Store is the only way to download apps not included with the OS.

The second sentence is not true in the EU and Japan, two regions that actually care about end users.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#1000

Post by subscribed »

userbinator wrote: post #301
subscribed wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that gives me hope - my SO bricked their Thinkpad by forcibly powering it off in the midst of the firmware upgrade of all things. Don't ask. I was looking for the flashing hardware around here, but i should probably peek on AliExpress :)

A CH341A-based programmer with the accessories ("chip clip" cables and adapters) is available on AE for cheap (~$10) and will work to read/write the main BIOS. If you need to recover the EC, then I believe anything that can work as a generic JTAG device, like an FX2LP dongle (~$5 or less, and useful for other things like a logic analyser) will also be needed.

Thank you!
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