[_qulr]

Questions still unanswered:

1. Did Apple talk to Dustin, or just to the media?

2. The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple, and indeed Dustin's article says he was frustrated playing phone tag with multiple departments at Apple, each of whom were unable to help him resolve the issue.

3. Why did Apple Card deny the charge? My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment. It seems that the missed payment in this case would have only been $9.99 for Dustin's iCloud upgrade (which was successful charged and up to date on payments, Dustin said). There are late fees and so forth, but they don't usually just render the card unusable.

4. Why did this happen so fast, and why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers? A customer who in this case had purchased multiple MacBook Pros, as well as iCloud, I'm sure among other things.

5. What ever happened to the trade-in kit that Apple was supposed to send to Dustin? There's no indication that it ever arrived.

[komocode]

> The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple,

It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.

> My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment.

Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.

> Why did this happen so fast

The locked Apple ID and iCloud shutdown only happened on the M1 MacBook he purchased. Which makes sense. If I were to abuse the instant credit system and sold the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook on Ebay, the buyer should be able to know quickly if there were any issues with the device so they can rectify appropriately.

[_qulr]

> It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.

"Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list." So the calls don't just disappear forever, you still see them when you check your phone. You just don't hear a ring. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

> Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.

Why would this set off red flags? A failed autopay actually seems a lot more innocent than flat out not trying to pay at all. Especially if the autopay had been working previously.

> the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook

This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.

[zepto]

>> the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook

> This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.

Presumably hundreds of dollars.

Well above what most companies would think of as theft.

Whichever way you look at it, they disabled the account because he hadn’t paid for his computer, which is not unreasonable in itself.

Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when he incorrectly stated that his account had been disabled because of non payment of just one Apple Card bill.

[_qulr]

> Presumably hundreds of dollars. Well above what most companies would think of as theft.

This spin is so strange. Dustin is a longtime customer of Apple. Apple has a lot of information on him, and has done a lot of business with him. The idea that now he's suddenly going to become a criminal and steal money from a trade-in credit is absurd. Then what, high-tail it to Mexico and live a life of luxury with those hundreds of dollars?

> Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when

You mean in the tweet? Which has a limit of 280 characters? Because he did mention it in the article that he wrote after the tweet. It's silly to criticize a tweet for having incomplete information. Of course tweets have incomplete information, that's inevitable. Are you going to die on the hill of the tweet? The article expanded on the tweet.

zepto, I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something? Because buying Apple's latest MacBook Pro is a really strange way to bring down the company. Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience? We're all interested in exactly how the problem occurred, but I don't know, I just find it so strange when people feel they need to be Apple's self-appointed unpaid internet defender. Apple, as one of the world's most powerful corporations, can speak for itself if it so chooses, as it just did today.

You know, this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone. Shouldn't that be the bare minimum of customer service? Dustin certainly tried to do that. He only went public after multiple failures to resolve the problem first. Nothing you can say, and no mistakes that Dustin made, can change the fact that there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here.

[zepto]

You are continuing to speculate based on incomplete information.

You are painting a picture, but really that’s all it is until we have more answers.

You really don’t know what happened.

> this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone

Perhaps true. We don’t know for sure, but irrelevant to whether Dustin made bullshit statements. He could have made it public without that.

> Which has a limit of 280 characters?

What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit, completely unsubstantiated by anything He or Apple later said.

That has nothing to do with the character limit.

> I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something?

You can follow the link I posted elsewhere in reply to Dustin himself.

I don’t think it was his goal to harm Apple, however it is definitely some people’s goal, and by posting a false statement, he has created misinformation which such people readily exploit.

> there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here

No. This is just more speculation from you. As we have already established, you really don’t know what happened.

> Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience?

Nobody is tearing anyone down. I’m just saying that we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening. My response is to you drawing conclusions without waiting to hear from him.

He provided incomplete and incorrect information and that has led people to draw faulty conclusions. It would help if he cleared this up.

Even just saying “my bad, I was upset at having my account disabled and jumped to the wrong conclusion in my tweet” would help. Remember he doubled down later and made a second false claim about Apple’s policies.

Why are you defending this anyway? Just because Apple can make press releases, why would you encourage the spread of false information here in this forum?

The moderators do make effort to prevent that, but it takes a certain amount of community support too.

It’s pretty simple - you made a list of questions which I agreed was reasonable, but that the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now. The rest of this discussion stems from you drawing conclusions without waiting for him to reply.

[_qulr]

zepto on the one hand:

> incomplete information

> until we have more answers

> You really don’t know what happened.

> we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening

> the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now

zepto on the other hand:

> What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit

> he has created misinformation

> He provided incomplete and incorrect information

> made a second false claim

> the spread of false information here

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?

> which such people readily exploit

This is again an over the top description. Apple is doing just fine, raking in the money at record rate. Exploit? Exploit how? Dustin hasn't released a 0day security vulnerability here. Relax, Apple is going to be fine, you don't have to run with your musket to the front line to defend the company from certain death. If one Twitter user could actually do so much damage to Apple, if it were that easy to significantly hurt the company, then Apple would be out of business by now.

Even back in the 90s when Apple was "beleaguered", it wasn't internet commenters like you who saved Apple. It was Apple's own change in technology, business strategy, and leadership that saved Apple. You really don't have to go online and "protect" Apple. They are going to be ok. IMO the army of online  defenders actually do more harm than good to Apple, because they make it appear like a religious cult. Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary. Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy. The worst scenario would be if individuals are afraid of ever speaking out about Apple or other corporations, for fear of the online mob, and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro" comments, I want to scream.

[zepto]

Reasonable questions.

Frankly, though they are questions for Dustin.

I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.

It would be pretty bad if Apple is claiming to have done this, and didn’t.

The fact that he didn’t mention them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

It just means he didn’t connect them to the suspension of his card, which he had another explanation for.

What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?

I haven’t seen a timeline of what happened that makes that clear.

Either way, Dustin owes us a clarification at this point.

He left a lot out of his original story, and was flat out wrong about Apple’s policy.

His report has lost credibility for me now that we have this additional information.

I agree that it doesn’t mean Apple’s policies are somehow exonerated, but we won’t know that until Dustin either confirms or denies the details.

Let’s note that he said this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26308271

And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.

[_qulr]

> they are questions for Dustin

How are 3, 4, and 5 questions for Dustin? Dustin is supposed to answer "why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?

> I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.

He did receive emails, which he described in his article. He also described phone calls with Apple that happened after his accounts were disabled, but obviously there was nothing before that. "The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call “hopefully” within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was." https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account

> What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?

He purchased the new MacBook Pro in mid-January. Apple sent an "Action Required: Apple Card" email on February 15 regarding the trade-in. The account suspensions started around February 19, "About ten days ago" according to the March 1 article. That seems relatively quick to me. Apple certainly isn't hurting for cash, what's the rush?

> And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.

He only missed one payment, and Apple disabled his accounts shortly thereafter. Nobody is disputing those facts. So what's complete bullshit?

[zepto]

With all due respect, this isn’t really a “question”. It’s a conclusion.

> why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?

It’s like saying “have you stopped beating your wife yet?”

It’s really just you making the statement that you want people to hear.

Without hearing from Dustin we can’t draw that conclusion.

Justin wrote what now looks like clear bullshit.

We have heard Apple’s response.

It’s now time for Dustin’s response.

[_qulr]

> It’s like saying “have you stopped beating your wife yet?”

No, it's not. I described the timeline. I described how Dustin is a loyal Apple customer. Disabling his accounts over a delayed trade-in seems unnecessary and overly harsh.

> We have heard Apple’s response. It’s now time for Dustin’s response.

This goes back to my question 1. I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response. Especially since everything he says will be closely scrutinized by everyone. After all, Apple's response didn't come until 2 days after the article. Which I'm not complaining about, but we need to give these things time and not demand immediate responses to our hot takes.

[zepto]

> seems unnecessary and overly harsh

As I said - a conclusion. Your conclusion, based on incomplete facts.

Perhaps if Dustin answers you will turn out to be right, and then that will be a reasonable question.

> I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response.

Who expects him to already have a response? That’s an expectation that nobody is talking about except you.

But this is absolutely a question for him to answer.

As I said - these are questions for Dustin.