In my last blog post, I went into some details about how my iTunes account had been hacked, and some $350 charged to my credit card. I figured I would write an update as to what has happened lately.
I contacted my credit card company, and had to close the account and get new credit cards issued. That’s always a pain because I have items like Netflix that get billed to that account monthly.
Once I got my credit card, and regained access to my iTunes account, I was met with a message that I had an outstanding balance of $16.22. This was an unauthorized charge that had to be taken care of before my account would be re-enabled (meaning, I can’t even download FREE apps until this is resolved). So I emailed back to Apple Tech Support, and received this response:
I would then ask that you pay for the currently pending order. While I understand that you did not make the purchase, it will need to be paid before you can make purchases on your account again. However, once paid, you would then ask that you reply to this email to let us know so that we can issue you a one time exception refund for this order.
This puzzled me, as I was previously told that Apple does not have the ability to generate refunds. Now I am being told that they DO have that ability, and that I MUST PAY FOR AN UNAUTHORIZED CHARGE with my brand new credit card. Ugh. Really?! Just REMOVE THE UNAUTHORIZED CHARGE from my account…
Again, Tech Support is oh so helpful and understanding.
I know you may be hesitant to add your credit card back to your account, but I assure you that once you do, and the previous order has been paid for, I will be able to simply refund you for it as a one time exception. In the end, you will not lose any money from the order and will regain your account, and the ability to make use of it again.
Lastly, Tech Support gave me NO OTHER OPTION. If I ever want access to my iPhone apps again, I have to pay for this unauthorized charge, and then rely on them to refund it and re-enable my account.
Well, sadly and reluctantly I paid for my $16.22 of unauthorized pending charges on 5/2/2010. And since then, I have heard NOTHING back from Apple Tech Support. I still do not have access to my account. I cannot download new apps, even FREE ones. I cannot download upgrades to my existing apps.
I urge everyone to consider buy their music and devices from somewhere other than Apple. Their lack of security and customer support is simply not worth the hassle.
UPDATE: As of 5/14/2010, this issue has finally been resolved with Apple. It took a complaint via the Better Business Bureau, but ultimately I have received my refund and my iTunes account has been re-enabled. I am still displeased with Apple's lack of security regarding iTunes accounts. When I suggested some ways for Apple to make their iTunes accounts more secure (i.e., verifying a new email address, emailing if/when security options change, etc), they simply replied with:
I encourage you to use the iTunes Feedback page to submit your comments:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
So I encourage everyone to provide similar feedback (or stop using iTunes altogether).
4 comments:
Can you report Apple to the police at this point? This is just fraudulent behaviour on their part that your account is still locked and they've taken your money, AND they're not replying to you.
I'm looking into what other courses of action I have. I am starting by getting some of the bigger blogs to see who will pick up the story. Also with the FTC and Justice Dept about to start investigating Apple for anti-competitive behavior, I'm guessing they'd be interested in this kind of activity.
FWIW I emailed a link to this post to sjobs@apple.com but I'm willing to bet that goes nowhere :) I also sent it to Engadget since they had a nice form for submitting things like this.
This is ridiculous and makes me worried about using iTunes, as it should any reasonable Joe Blogs. Troubling. I hope it ends up working out for you and they do something to make it right because what they've done so far is just ridiculous by any measure.
Hi, I just left a comment in your earlier post. I have the exact same problem. How did you finally get the issue resolved with Apple?
I was charged for an outstanding balance, but my account was never reactivated. I emailed Apple, but they never emailed me back (beyond an automated response).
I'm not even sure I want to resolve the issue at this point, even though it means that I will lose some music and movies. Apple clearly has some major security issues and they are not interested in rectifying them. I don't want them to have access to my credit card information at all. I've already had to cancel my credit card twice over this.
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