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> If you owe money on the App Store because maybe your non-Apple card expired and you never updated it, Apple will shut down your account still.

That's not what happened though. His credit card didn't expire. His credit card was the Apple Card.

With any other credit card, the merchant gets their money regardless of whether the card holder pays their credit card bill on time. You can buy a MacBook Pro with a Bank of America card, default on your credit card bill, and Apple still gets paid for the MacBook Pro. That's why the money is "credit". So defaulting on your Bank of America payments doesn't make your Apple ID shut down, there's no connection. If merchants didn't get their money from credit cards, then they would stop accepting credit cards. (Merchants are already pissed about the high fees charged by the cards.)

This situation with the Apple Card is weird because the merchant and the credit card company are more or less the same company. It turns out, this is very problematic.

komocode 1928 days ago

> That's not what happened though. His credit card didn't expire

I didn't say that's what happened. I'm saying it's entirely possible Apple can shutdown your account for owing money even if you don't have an Apple Card.

I had an iTunes account back in 2012 linked to my Paypal. One time I accidentally unlinked my Paypal and Apple wouldn't let me access my iCloud email unless I typed my password. When I typed in my password, it would ask me to verify my CC/Paypal details. When I clicked cancel, the entire process would just happen again.

> Apple can shutdown your account for owing money

Owing money to whom is the question.

Apple can't shut down your account for owing money to Bank of America. Or for owing money to Goldman Sachs for a credit card not associated with Apple. In the case of Apple Card, who is the money owed to, Apple or Goldman Sachs? The latter is supposed to be the bank.

komocode 1928 days ago

> Owing money to whom is the question.

Today I can put an App Store charge on my Chase card and do a chargeback making up some stupid reason that I never got my app in which the chargeback would be successful. It's not entirely out of the question that Apple would lock my account until that charge is resolved.

Similarly, Dustin could have used a Chase card to buy the M1 Mac, supposedly "tradein" without sending the device back, Apple erroneously crediting that CC, and then Apple locking down the account until that's resolved.

Both situations result in owing Apple and both are totally plausible situations.

> Today I can put an App Store charge on my Chase card and do a chargeback making up some stupid reason that I never got my app in which the chargeback would be successful. It's not entirely out of the question that Apple would lock my account until that charge is resolved.

Yes, we're all aware of chargebacks, and nobody is disputing that you would owe Apple in that situation. Not sure how this really helps the argument.

The issue here is that the Apple Card seems to completely obliterate any separation between the merchant and the bank, which is obviously problematic. In fact there are 3 different things that you would expect to have some separation: the hardware (MacBook Pro), the services (iCloud), and the credit card. But now all 3 are the same, so buying the hardware with the credit card causes the service to be shut down.

Whereas if the hardware were Dell, the service was Google, and the credit card was Chase, then this problem wouldn't exist, and it would merely be an issue between Chase and the card holder, not affecting the Google services at all.

komocode 1928 days ago

Chargeback is to establish that Apple can shutdown your services if Apple thinks you owe them money.

Dustin was erroneously credited for something from Apple, and now Apple shutdown his account because they want the money back. This would have happened if it was a Chase card which would prove this statement wrong (which is my whole point):

" the main issue is that Apple shut down his other Apple services because of non-payment. This presumably wouldn't happen if the charge was on a non-Apple card."

Neither is relevant. The account was shut down because it owed Apple Retail money and they weren’t able to collect on its payment method on file, regardless of what that payment method was.

No. An auth can fail for regular cards as well, especially in a case like this when the auth was placed almost two months before the attempted charges. Most auth holds are only valid for a week or so.

In your BofA card, the credit card could decline the charge if it put the holder over their credit limit. For all we know, that might be why the Apple Card charge was declined.

>In your BofA card, the credit card could decline the charge if it put the holder over their credit limit.

Yes, but when charges are declined, merchants don't ship the products.

This is a weird case, because it was a retroactive charge not explicitly authorized by the card holder. That kind of thing rarely happens.

> For all we know, that might be why the Apple Card charge was declined.

What do you mean "For all we know"? The whole thing was explained in the article, we know exactly what happened.

> This is a weird case, because it was a retroactive charge not explicitly authorized by the card holder. That kind of thing rarely happens

And that is a feature of the trade-in buy flow and not how the purchaser chose to pay. Which is my point exactly which you have been trying to dispute.

> The whole thing was explained in the article, we know exactly what happened.

No we don’t. The article simply says their balance was not being paid. It’s possible that the trade in charge put them over their credit limit and that’s why it was declined. They never confirm otherwise.

> The article simply says their balance was not being paid. It’s possible that the trade in charge put them over their credit limit and that’s why it was declined. They never confirm otherwise.

It's all spelled out very clearly: "As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail. Then the Apple Store made a charge on the card."

His Apple Card was paid from his bank account. His bank account changed. He failed to update the bank info. Simple as that, no mystery whatsoever.

If my auto pay information changed for my Apple Card today and became invalid, I would still be able to charge my card a year from today because I have no outstanding balance to pay. Failure to have valid auto pay is necessary but not sufficient.

In addition, you still seem to overlook the fact that every other credit card on the market can also fail to post a transaction even if it authorizes, given sufficient time between the two events.