Apple account blocked: Gift card triggers days-long lockout
An Apple user experienced a nightmare when a gift card blocked his account for days and rendered data unusable. The incident raises questions.
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Dr. Paris Buttfield-Addison actually just wanted to enter the code of an Apple gift card. Repeated failed attempts to do so had far-reaching consequences for the long-time Apple user and author of various technical books, which quickly overshadowed the frustration over the card. He suddenly found himself confronted with a days-long account lockout at Apple, which made large parts of his private data and his device fleet unusable. The good news is: Apple has since restored access. However, many questions remain open after the incident. Users are concerned online that something like this could happen to them too.
According to a blog post he wrote, Buttfield-Addison had purchased the $500 Apple gift card from a major retailer. When he tried to redeem the code, a message first appeared. Shortly thereafter, his entire Apple account was deactivated – without warning and for no apparent reason. The developer and book author, who has been working in the Apple ecosystem for years and publishes about it, suddenly lost access to iCloud data, app purchases, and numerous services.
Dependence on the Apple Ecosystem
The incident vividly shows how dependent users have become on their Apple account. Buttfield-Addison describes in detail in his blog post the impact of the lockout: Hardware worth tens of thousands of US dollars became practically unusable. iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Macs could no longer sync or function properly. Access to software and media worth thousands of dollars was lost.
Particularly absurd: Apple claims that only the "Media and Services" part of the account was blocked, meaning only services and media. But in reality, Buttfield-Addison was logged out of iMessage from his devices and could not log back in. Even logging out of the iCloud account no longer worked. He could neither download nor use his iCloud photo library, which comprised several terabytes.
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Support Reaches Its Limits
According to the affected person, dealing with Apple support became a nightmare. Employees refused to provide any information as to why the account was blocked. To his request for escalation to Executive Relations, Apple's special team for support cases, he received the answer that "further escalation will not lead to a different outcome."
One of the most curious pieces of advice: A support employee even suggested that he personally visit Apple's headquarters in Australia.
Particularly problematic is the recommendation from a support employee that Buttfield-Addison should simply create a new Apple account and deposit his payment information there. This would likely have triggered another lockout, as his devices were already known to Apple in the alleged fraud case.
Many Questions Remain Open
Apparently, the manipulated gift card triggered an automated fraud alert, from which there was no escape. Initial, various media reports led Apple to contact the Australian themselves. On December 18, he was finally able to give the all-clear: the account was restored. An employee from Singapore explained to him that the gift card had apparently already been redeemed in some way – presumably through manipulation. The man also gave Buttfield-Addison a remarkable piece of advice: he should only buy gift cards directly from Apple in the future.
From the perspective of observers of this case, it remains unclear how susceptible Apple's automatic systems are to error detection. And to what extent the company is drawing lessons from the case. While there is every understanding for automatic fraud prevention, there must be human contacts who can quickly clarify such error detections and unlock blocked access.
(mki)
