The locking of an Apple Account and the difficulty one loyal Apple customer has experienced in regaining access is a stark reminder to be vigilant when buying gift cards for the holidays.
While holiday presents tend to involve physical items or cash, gift cards are often included in the mix, especially as a last-minute purchase. However, as one prominent Apple user has discovered, sometimes buying a gift card can be hazardous, even if they take a lot of precautions.
Posted on Saturday, Paris Buttfield-Addison of game studio Secret Lab explains how access to their entire Apple digital life has been blocked off. All stemming from an Apple Gift Card purchase.
There was an attempt to apply an Apple Gift Card code valued at $500 to an Apple Account, in order to pay for a 6TB iCloud+ storage plan. However, the code was rejected by Apple.
The vendor was contacted about the code, proposing that the card number was probably compromised. The retailer then reissued a code, which was used on the account.
Not long after, the account was locked.
The blog post explains that the gift card was purchased from a "major brick-and-mortar retailer," rather than a smaller, less secure retailer or from an acquaintance. Indeed, to try and prove the legitimacy, a copy of the receipt including the gift card's serial number and purchase location were sent to Apple.
While this is a problem that could've affected a typical user, the victim in this case is far from a casual Apple customer. They have written books on Apple development and have helped to run the longest-running third-party Apple developer event, /dev/world.
Digital life destroyed
The account itself was flagged as "closed in accordance with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions." Naturally, there were repercussions that did a lot more to Dr Buttfield-Addison's digital life than simply the closure of one account.
The Apple ID had been in use for around 25 years, and has been a big part of their digital life. Blocking the account meant there was no access to terabytes of family photos, their message history, and also interfered with syncing work between devices.
This also meant multiple Macs, an iPhone, an iPad, and an Apple Watch have been deemed "bricked" by not being able to synchronize, update, or function properly. Not to mention not being able to access purchased software and media tied to the same account.
Oddly, while the devices have been signed out of iMessage, there's no way to sign out of the blocked iCloud account because it's apparently been blocked from the sign-out API.
The blocks have also locked a connected Apple Developer ID and other associated elements.
A severe lack of support
There was an attempt to get help from Apple, except that there was an astounding lack of empathy from the support representatives. Explanations for why the account was banned or other details about the blocks were not provided by support staff at all.
When a request was made to escalate to Executive Customer Relations, the representatives insisted that doing so "won't lead to a different outcome."
Representatives also allegedly made some odd proposals to fix the situation. In one case, there was the recommendation to physically visit Apple's Australian headquarters to plead their case for access.
A senior advisor gave what was probably the worst advice, in telling them to create a new Apple Account and "update the payment information."
This is problematic for multiple reasons. The post explains that doing so would go against Apple's Terms and Conditions, since the closure of the account is a "Termination of Access" and revokes any licenses to use Apple's services.
There's also the technical problem in that, if a new account is created on the currently-owned and probably hardware-flagged devices, the new account could be linked to the banned account. That would mean the new account would be disabled for attempting to circumventApple's security measures and policies.
An additional factor is that there's an Apple Developer membership at play. By creating a new ID to dodge the ban, it could result in a permanent blacklist to the Apple Developer Program.
Dr Buttfield-Addison has asked for human review of the case at Apple, believing that it's an automated fraud flag caused by the bad gift card. It's a "nuclear response" they believe the frontline support teams cannot override, but one that is also thwarted by an unwillingness to escalate it up the support food chain.
Even so, there have been attempts to escalate the issue through other means, with seemingly no success at this time.
AppleInsider has contacted Apple for comment.
Raised questions
While certainly an issue, the case may not necessarily be as simple as it immediately appears.
A senior Apple Support advisor contacted AppleInsider about the story, pointing out some factors that complicate the issue.
They assert that it is very unlikely that the particular card caused the account to be locked on its own. While there are many steps for an advisor to check and protect against fraud by scammers, the attempt wouldn't necessarily flag the account on its own.
The value of the gift card is also quite large, presumably to continue paying for the service over a year or so. That said, since it's possible to purchase Apple hardware using Apple Account funds, $500 isn't that much to concern Apple.
The contact goes on to insist they have seen the media and purchases side of things get locked out, but that would involve a different set of terms than what could make an entire account inactive. While not impossible, they add that they haven't seen this sort of behavior triggered by a single gift card redemption attempt.
The implication is that there is possibly something else interfering with the accounts.
As for the lack of information from the advisors on why an account is closed, it is insisted that advisors are not informed exactly why, even if it involves terms and conditions violations. Part of this is to prevent information leaking out that can allow people to game the system.
Protect yourself
The incident is a stark reminder that consumers should take adequate steps to protect their data and their digital lives at every level. Both to protect against loss from malware and online attacks, and the odd occasion like this where false positives lead to account protections causing their own problems.
For the gift card side, AppleInsider recommends being wary of where you buy them from, due to the potential of codes being used for fraud. In some insecure systems, a digital gift code could be read and consumed by a bad actor before being issued to you.
In the case of gift cards being sold on the second-hand market, there's often no real recourse if the code you've received doesn't actually work or blocks your account. With a major retailer, there's at least a chance of getting a refund or some other compensation.
The best place to buy a high-value gift card is from Apple directly, minimizing the number of middlemen between Apple and you.
It is also best practice to back up your data on a regular basis, and to keep those backups in multiple secure locations.
This will at least mean that your backed-up data will be safe, even if Apple blocks access to your online storage for whatever reason.
Updated December 14, 11:00 a.m. Eastern: Added commentary from a senior Apple Support advisor, whom AppleInsider is keeping anonymous.