An Apple fan who has spent “nearly 30 years as a loyal customer” says they’ve been “permanently” locked out of their Apple Account due to what might be the overzealous actions of Apple’s automated anti-fraud system. It’s left them locked out of “20 years of digital life,” and it all started with the seemingly straightforward purchase of an Apple gift card.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    1 day ago

    I’ve been an Apple customer for 35 years. Had an Apple account as long as Apple has had such things. A few years ago (specifically, when Apple started retiring 32-bit apps from the App Store) I saw where Apple was going and created a dedicated account for my Apple ID that’s separate from the one I use for my contact for Apple services.

    If Apple locked me out of my account today, I’d lose access to 14 years of app purchases on that account. That’s about it? And at some point I started using an alternative ID for some of my purchases, so I’d only lose access to some of them. And of course, I now keep copies of everything backed up, since they could vanish from Apple’s servers at any time.

    • ORbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      32
      ·
      1 day ago

      You seem a bit dependent on a single provider. Maybe not putting your eggs in one basket might be better… Or two baskets, as it were, with eggs from the same chicken.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        32
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        Apple is the only provider of Apple IDs.

        Other yhan that, I’m not sure what gave you the impression I’m dependent on a single provider?

        • ORbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          26
          ·
          1 day ago

          I’ve been an Apple customer for 35 years. Had an Apple account as long as Apple has had such things.

          If Apple locked me out of my account today, I’d lose access to 14 years of app purchases on that account. That’s about it?

          No reason.

          • Vespair@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 hours ago

            “I’ve been buying all my oranges from the orange store for 35 years.”

            “Boy you don’t eat turkey, do you?”

            ???

          • Asetru@feddit.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            32
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            That means they are only depending on apple for the one thing only apple provides, which is app purchases on the Apple platform. Everything else they have locally or backed up somewhere else. It’s literally their point that they’re independent despite having used the platform for so long.

            • ORbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              12
              ·
              1 day ago

              Not the apps that came with it or the infrastructure that supports providing those apps to devices or the devices upon which those apps or services run?

              • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 day ago

                I’m still missing your point.

                I’ve got all my apps I’ve downloaded backed up, at least for macOS. iOS… easier to grab the older ones off a pirate repository once Apple stops listing them.

                Are you trying to say that everyone should be running Debian Stable without non-free on commodity x86 or RISC-V hardware with only open source hardware gerbers and no proprietary chips?

                • ORbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  10
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  Nope. At this point, I see that nothing I say will matter. The die has been cast and it’s no longer worth trying.

                  Enjoy your Apple ecosystem.

                  • suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    7
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 day ago

                    You do realize this happens to people on Android as well, right? Google shuts down accounts for random inexplicable reasons all the time, and when that happens the user loses all of their apps purchased through Google’s store. What are you suggesting he do differently? Other than just…not have a smart phone or paid apps on it?