Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️
Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it. I hope this is true. They say they’ll call me back tomorrow, on 15 December 2025. In the mean time, it’s been covered by Daring Fireball, Apple Insider, Michael Tsai, and others, thanks folks! I’ve received 100s of emails of support, and will reply to you all in time, thank you. Finger’s crossed Apple calls back.
Wrote books on Apple software. Bought five figures of gear over decades. Then bought an Apple giftcard, & suddenly permabanned in spite of raising issue with internal contacts.
In my experience, the best way to get Apple to listen is to get legal involved. I spent hours on the phone trying to resolve a laptop that was damaged by a certified service provider. Apple support was rude, they lied to me, they bounced me between departments. So I wrote one email requesting all the recordings for the calls with support. Immediately someone from legal contacts me, apologizes, and 2 weeks later I have a brand new laptop 2 generations newer in hand.
Impressive. And perhaps also clever, depending on whether that was what you predicted would happen! :)
And you never mentioned anything related to litigation, it was just a polite recording request? Maybe you mentioned the dishonesty, or kept it generic…
Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if it was actually public relations and not legal. This was back when M1 was just coming out. Regardless, just ask them for all the call recordings and make them think you’re gonna do something with those recordings (sue, go to the press, etc.). It was crazy how their tone shifted immediately from we’re not gonna give you anything to how can we make this right.
But maybe it doesn’t always work, as your Apple ID story was obviously published. Maybe it depends on who you get it maybe Apple is different today 🤷
Maybe reach out to Apple with a link to the blog post, and ask if they would like to comment before you reach out to Gizmodo or something. I’m not a lawyer so don’t sue me if it goes badly.
In my experience, the best way to get Apple to listen is to get legal involved. I spent hours on the phone trying to resolve a laptop that was damaged by a certified service provider. Apple support was rude, they lied to me, they bounced me between departments. So I wrote one email requesting all the recordings for the calls with support. Immediately someone from legal contacts me, apologizes, and 2 weeks later I have a brand new laptop 2 generations newer in hand.
Impressive. And perhaps also clever, depending on whether that was what you predicted would happen! :)
And you never mentioned anything related to litigation, it was just a polite recording request? Maybe you mentioned the dishonesty, or kept it generic…
Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if it was actually public relations and not legal. This was back when M1 was just coming out. Regardless, just ask them for all the call recordings and make them think you’re gonna do something with those recordings (sue, go to the press, etc.). It was crazy how their tone shifted immediately from we’re not gonna give you anything to how can we make this right.
But maybe it doesn’t always work, as your Apple ID story was obviously published. Maybe it depends on who you get it maybe Apple is different today 🤷
Maybe reach out to Apple with a link to the blog post, and ask if they would like to comment before you reach out to Gizmodo or something. I’m not a lawyer so don’t sue me if it goes badly.
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