[jms703]

Why was this 4 year old article posted with no additional context?

Lots of red flags here on the author's part. This seems like a case of someone not following through on their tradein, missing a payment due to a changed bank account, and then ignoring Apple’s emails about the issue.

The author makes it sound like Apple acted out of nowhere, but the reality is they gave notice and took action only after the author failed to respond. If you don’t return a trade-in and your card goes past due, it makes sense that Apple would revoke access to services tied to that purchase. Framing it as Apple “holding accounts hostage” feels misleading—it looks more like the natural result of missed obligations and poor follow-up.

[thanatosmin]

Because today is the day that I read the blog post.

I agree with you that Apple taking action on the account is not wholly unreasonable. What I found shocking was the inability to contact someone who could resolve the situation. I know this is a common issue with Google, but had expected Apple to be different.

[Aurornis]

> What I found shocking was the inability to contact someone who could resolve the situation.

But they did. The first person was unfamiliar with the issue, likely because the Apple Card program was relatively new at the time. They opened a case to escalate.

Apple’s phone support has been relatively good in my experience. I expect they’d have this situation more integrated into first-line support in 2025 than they did when the program was new.

[j45]

Lose the ID and you lose access to so much.

Identity services from the large companies are very convenient, but the citizens of Google, or Apple, or Microsoft are largely faceless and rightless citizens of a corporation with no ability to contact anyone for anything.

The story and lesson is simple is to tie as little as possible to identity systems using a domain you don't own.

This isn't a statement of expecting perfection from any group, just the opposite, of knowing that things can happen unexpectedly, where is the middle ground in a relationship that impacts the user more than the company if the ID is lost.

[altairprime]

The only issue with posting it today is that it was missing (2021), which has been added since this thread started, so all is well.

[notpushkin]

They never recieved the trade-in kit. When asked, Apple never replied.

And no, it doesn’t make sense for Apple to disable most of the services in case a credit card is past due for a few days.

[bastawhiz]

I'm not sure I believe they never replied. The author missed an email saying their payment wasn't accepted and that all of their services would be disabled, that's pretty serious. I'm supposed to believe Apple just lost the ticket?

I'm also not sure why the author didn't follow up: not following up has the direct consequence of being charged a substantial amount of money.

[notpushkin]

Yeah, I mean, I understand them being charged for the failed trade-in. Their credit card was charged, so Apple supposedly got the money (from Goldman Sachs). Why did they still block his account (owned by Apple) when he failed to pay his credit card bill (owed to Goldman Sachs)?

[bastawhiz]

He didn't pay for the device.

The linkage between the card and the account doesn't actually seem important here. They locked the account that the unpaid iPhone was set up with. Why would Apple continue to provide service to an account that was being used by a device that was effectively partially stolen from them?

[josephcsible]

If you buy a Corolla, pay it off, then a few years later buy a Camry too, and you default on its loan, should they be allowed to remotely disable both of your cars?

[bastawhiz]

They didn't disable his phone, they disabled the services that ran on their servers. Should you still get updates and navigation in both of your cars if you effectively steal the car? I can't think of a case where that would be reasonable.

Moreover, cars are much more easily repossessed than phones and laptops.

[pqtyw]

Presumably same would apply to all other devices that user might have had? Disabling those seems quite unreasonable..

[bastawhiz]

They didn't disable the devices, they disabled the connected services.

[gopher_space]

The department that handles these problems is unreachable by phone instead of very interested in edge cases and false positives. That's an intentional choice.

[Spooky23]

The weakest link in Apple’s chain is the return and tradein fulfillment side. They use distinctive boxes for trades and the clown car of couriers — FedEx. Many of the couriers doing pickups at FedEx are private contractors or subcontractors, and their loss rates are high between pilferage and incompetence.

I’ve personally experienced two occasions where iPhones have been stolen in transit by FedEx personnel — one vanished and one, bound for an Apple repair facility in Pennsylvania, was delivered to a residential address a few miles from my city.

In neither case was Apple aware, which was surprising to me as they typically have their shit together. I only realized there was an issue on the one occasion where they were going to charge me for a replacement device, and checking the tracking indicated the phone was delivered to a stay at home mom. The whole process must be outsourced to a meh contractor, and insurance cleans up the mess.

[II2II]

I read the article from the point of view that Apple's response was at issue.

The missed notification is something that we have to take the author's word for, but it could very well be true. Perhaps I'm more sympathetic because I ran into a similar situation recently. I called a company because I hadn't received a bill, was told that they recently sold off the relevant division, and that they sent me an email explaining how to switch my billing information over to the new owner. I don't recall receiving such an email. If it did hit my inbox, it was likely deleted. I would have regarded such an email as a phishing attempt without a second glance. The situation may have been different for the article's author, but they may have still had a legitimate reason for missing it.

Apple's response was also excessive. I would expect them to lose subscription services, but not access to their accounts. At in my experience, my Apple accounts remain active even though my last hardware purchase from them was well over a decade ago. (Clearly I am not receiving subscription services, but the accounts still exist and my purchases are still accessible.)

While Apple's response is nowhere near Google's (e. g. the customer was able to find out what the problem was and resolve it), it sounds like Apple overstepped bounds.

[croes]

To be fair Apple didn’t respond to the reply that they hadn’t received the trade-in kit and it’s some kind of hostage situation. No other credit card company could block all these services because a payment was 15 days overdue.

[hamburglar]

I have an appleid that I’ve had for over 15 years. A couple months ago I bought a Mac and I decided to do it by getting an Apple Card and financing it at 0%. I made the apparent mistake of not creating a new Apple ID for this new machine, because it’s quite a shock to me that if I miss an Apple Card payment, my 17 year old Apple ID that controls my long-paid-off phone is at stake. That’s an unusual amount of leverage for a company to have.

[xyst]

the idea here is that Apple Card is owned by gs. Being delinquent with AC shouldn’t have any impact to currently leased/paid for digital assets such as Music/Movies.

Good job blaming the victim. Hail corporate, I guess

[jillyboel3]

not paying for a new phone in full does NOT warrant retaliatory action against all of the author's accounts.

block the device, sure. send collections after him for the unpaid amount, sure.

retaliating by blocking all his unrelated, paid for, accounts is yet another reason apple should be broken up. it also doesn't sound like they refunded him for the days of usage that were lost that surely still had to be paid for.