- A developer says his Apple account has been “permanently” blocked
- This happened after he bought a compromised Apple gift card
- Leaves ’20 years of digital life’ out of reach as Apple apparently can’t help
An Apple fan who has spent “nearly 30 years as a loyal customer” says he has been “permanently” locked out of his Apple account due to what could be overzealous actions by Apple’s automated anti-fraud system. It left them locked out of “20 years of digital life” and it all started with the seemingly simple purchase of an Apple gift card.
According to a blog post by developer Paris Buttfield-Addison, their entire Apple account has been locked, preventing them from accessing all of their purchase history, stored photos, and more. This apparently happened without “explanation or recourse,” putting “terabytes of family photos” and your entire message history out of your reach, as well as preventing your ability to sync work across devices.
Apparently it all started when Buttfield-Addison tried to redeem a $500 Apple gift card to pay for her 6TB iCloud+ subscription. The card was purchased at a major brick-and-mortar retailer, but its code did not appear to work. The provider suggested it might be compromised and issued a new card, but that didn’t stop Apple from blocking Buttfield-Addison’s account.
As a result of this, Buttfield-Addison says his devices cannot “sync, update or function properly”, while software and media worth thousands of dollars in total are now inaccessible to him. The result, the author says, is “over $30,000 worth of previously active ‘locked’ hardware.”
We’ve asked Apple to comment on this case and also its official guidance for anyone finding themselves in a similar situation, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.
“Frighteningly dismissive”
Unfortunately, Buttfield-Addison says Apple has been unwilling or unable to help. “Most of the ways Apple has suggested reaching out to them for help involve logging into an Apple service to charge something or contact them,” Buttfield-Addison says. “This doesn’t work because the account is locked.”
Apple support was also apparently “terribly dismissive,” the blog post claims, with staff refusing to tell Buttfield-Addison why her account was banned and apparently stonewalling her request to escalate the case.
A member of Apple’s support staff suggested that Buttfield-Addison should create a new Apple account and add her payment information to it. The problem, however, is that this would mean giving up the “thousands of dollars in purchases” associated with the locked account. Buttfield-Addison was also concerned that this could draw the ire of Apple if it decided that he was trying to evade or circumvent his account ban.
In the end, Buttfield-Addison publicly asked for an Apple human to review her case, as she suspects the compromised gift card triggered an automated fraud warning, which then initiated a high-level ban that Apple support staff apparently cannot undo.
The situation has been covered by several prominent Apple blogs and websites, and Buttfield-Addison has posted an update stating that “Someone from Apple Executive Relations says they are looking into it.” However, so far it appears that the case remains unsolved.
It’s a stark reminder that it can be risky to put all your eggs in one basket. While Buttfield-Addison apparently did nothing wrong by invoking the ban, the result is that a large part of her digital life is now inaccessible.
If you store your photos and files in one place, it’s a good idea to back them up to multiple locations to prevent anything from going wrong. But with how integrated devices are today, it’s hard to avoid having all your apps, purchases, and media within a single ecosystem. In cases like that, there’s not much you can do.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
