[HN Gopher] If you miss an Apple Card payment, Apple disables al...
___________________________________________________________________
If you miss an Apple Card payment, Apple disables all your Apple
accounts
Author : lunchbreak
Score : 310 points
Date : 2021-03-01 19:37 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| gist wrote:
| Posts like this often seem to be a waste of reading time. Even if
| the person is 'a somebody'[1] there is often no context to other
| details just outrage by the community believing it as truth in
| some way. And then the predictable outrage follows. One commenter
| 'this is why I will not sign up for Apple Card' other comments
| 'big corporations suck' and so on.
|
| And no I don't think it matters that Dustin has so many twitter
| followers in terms of believability.
|
| Test should be has enough info been presented to draw a
| conclusion even if the person was nobody or just had opened a
| twitter account?
|
| The discussion is often interesting and sure you might learn
| things. But still why not just make random things up and do it
| that way (I am joking).
| samatman wrote:
| So, little embarrassed to admit this, but: I plumb forgot to set
| up autopay on my Apple Card when I first got it.
|
| I set it up to pay a few subscriptions and promptly forgot about
| it.
|
| As a result, I carried a balance for I think three months without
| making payments, and only noticed when I hit my credit limit.
| This was an expensive mistake, and also dinged my credit score
| for about four months. Still kinda mad at myself about it.
|
| No, Apple _did not disable my account_.
| ssully wrote:
| Literally just talked to a friend a few days ago who did this
| same exact thing. He carried a balance for about 2 months and
| also did not have his account disabled.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| So here's the weird thing.
|
| > No, Apple did not disable my account.
|
| I believe you, but I also trust the original poster by
| reputation. So what is the difference?
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Original poster observed A, then observed B, and concluded
| causality
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Don't take a simple tweet as a final word, that's how
| misinformation spreads
| ta20200202 wrote:
| The same is true for a HackerNews comment.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I'm not taking anything as final word. But I trust the
| author of the original Tweet to not make an over-reactive,
| uninformed post. That I'm curious what the difference
| between his situation and the above poster's is.
| syshum wrote:
| >>So what is the difference?
|
| Your expectation that a policy or rule would be enforced
| evenly across the organization..
|
| I think at this point it is clear that Big Tech do not have
| any policy, rule or terms of service that is enforced with
| anything that could be reasonably be considered "uniform"
| hctaw wrote:
| The original poster was paying for iCloud storage with their
| apple card, which is an Apple service.
| NearAP wrote:
| But he said the iCloud subscription was not due or past
| due. which means Apple did not try to charge his card for
| the iCloud service and then locked his account because they
| couldn't
|
| The iCloud subscription was not past due. [1]
|
| 1. https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/1366485756546539520
| samatman wrote:
| It can't be just that. iCloud storage and Apple Music were
| two of the subscriptions I was paying for, to get that
| sweet 3% cash back.
|
| It's possible that the card was maxed out and payments for
| the subscription failed, maybe? I caught mine before that
| happened.
|
| Edit: a sibling comment makes it clear that that isn't what
| happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26308468
| acomjean wrote:
| It could be just random rule enforcement.
|
| I manually pay my electric and gas. I can skip if for a month
| (or two) and not a problem. Except sometimes (once)..
|
| I have no idea why. I feel its just some random thing
| depending on who's running the dept that day.
|
| We experienced the same thing in College when after paying
| our electric bill for two months, they shut our power off
| without notice. Upon digging it was because we were still
| listed as "Residents" on the bills we were paying.
| caymanjim wrote:
| > So, little embarrassed to admit this, but: I plumb forgot to
| set up autopay on my Apple Card when I first got it.
|
| Why is that embarassing? Why on earth _would_ you set up auto-
| pay? That 's just asking for a headache if anything is every
| compromised, or if a vendor fraudulently or accidentally
| overcharges you. Reversing charges from your bank is a
| headache, and rogue charges can quickly cascade into a series
| of overdrafts, other failed payments, etc. Good luck getting
| reimbursed for all the charges if that happens, and hope it
| doesn't get you into a situation where you can't pay an
| important bill.
|
| It's madness to ever allow automatic financial transactions
| that aren't fixed, scheduled payments from trusted vendors.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I auto-pay all my bills (rent, utilities, etc), but manually
| pay my credit cards weekly. I have auto-pay set up on CCs as
| a backup just in case I ever fall into a coma and can't make
| a manual payment. It only auto-pays on a specific date, so
| you can dispute any charges prior to then.
| king_magic wrote:
| Eh, I disagree. I keep an eye on my credit card balances on a
| regular basis. It's nice to have autopay on for the credit
| cards I use less. Helps avoid late fees.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > That's just asking for a headache if anything is every
| compromised, or if a vendor fraudulently or accidentally
| overcharges you
|
| How is any of that specific for auto pay? Non-auto pay
| transactions can be compromised, and a non-auto pay vendor
| can fraudulently charge you, too.
| m463 wrote:
| most autopay setups are not dangerous.
|
| autopay on a credit card is great.
|
| But some are. the sketchy and hard-to-cancel services.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Why on earth would you set up auto-pay?
|
| Because it's super convenient. I resisted a long time and
| just had some of my accounts set to pay minimum payments, but
| that got expensive when I forgot to make manual payments.
|
| Regardless, the important bit here isn't so much that he
| forgot autopay, it's that he _didn 't pay at all_ for 3
| months.
| ljm wrote:
| So I guess this is a US thing. Is 'auto-pay' the same thing
| as setting up a monthly direct debit to pay either your
| minimum payment, a percentage, or to clear the full balance?
|
| If that's the case, and I can only speak for my experience in
| the UK and across the EU for a few years, I'll take the
| automated payment over the infinitesimal threat of being
| compromised and clicking a 'dispute this payment' link in my
| account.
|
| ATM withdrawals have far more risk and you wouldn't do those
| with a credit card.
| tzs wrote:
| > So I guess this is a US thing. Is 'auto-pay' the same
| thing as setting up a monthly direct debit to pay either
| your minimum payment, a percentage, or to clear the full
| balance?
|
| There are a variety of things someone could mean when they
| say "auto-pay" in the US, including:
|
| 1. Authorizing a merchant to keep your credit card info on
| file and to charge that whenever they want to bill you,
|
| 2. Providing a merchant with your checking account
| information and authorizing them to take money from there
| whenever they want to bill you,
|
| 3. Many banks include a bill paying service for free with
| your checking account, which can be configured to receive
| bills electronically from many merchants, and to
| automatically pay them from your checking account. Many
| banks will allow you to choose whether to automatically pay
| the full bill amount, the minimum due amount, the full
| balance amount, or a fixed amount, and will allow you to
| set a maximum amount.
|
| 4. For merchants that can not send bills electronically to
| your bank's bill paying service, many banks will let your
| configure the bill paying service to send the merchant a
| fixed amount on a regular schedule.
|
| 5. For bills for credit cards issued by the same bank where
| you have your checking account, there is often an auto-pay
| feature to automatically pay your credit card from that
| checking account.
|
| This often means that there are several ways to auto-pay a
| given bill. For example, I could auto-pay my electric bill
| by method #1, method #2, or method #3. If I used method #1,
| I could auto-pay that credit card with #2 and maybe #3.
| gabagool wrote:
| Yes, that's exactly what auto-pay is. I'm in the US myself
| and in my experience, almost everyone advocates auto-pay.
| Some people may choose to pay early and some people may not
| be able to pay, but generally people in the US are
| recommended to set up auto-pay.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Other than shopping, I don't think I have any payments from
| my account that _aren 't_ auto-pay (direct debit, the other
| person chooses the amount).
|
| I check the bank account every 6 weeks or so, and can
| investigate then if necessary. It's never been necessary.
| notJim wrote:
| The hit on your credit report that can last many years if you
| pay late is far more of a risk than fraud, IME. I forgot to
| pay my credit card 6 years ago, and that has been hurting me
| ever since, including on my mortgage. Finally fell off just
| this year.
| madengr wrote:
| I don't know why you are being downvoted. One has to be crazy
| to allow a business direct access to you primary checking
| account.
| komocode wrote:
| > Why on earth would you set up auto-pay?
|
| I've setup auto-pay on several accounts and left it running
| for over a decade. whatever issue I may have in the future
| would not exceed the amount of time wasted in manually paying
| each account.
| nullserver wrote:
| A surprise 17,000 electric Bill?
|
| I don't hear about it much anymore but for years was
| terrified of making a cell data mistake and ending up with
| a 40k+ bill.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Not sure I understand this, because autopay or not, if
| you accrue a 17k bill for a service then that's what's
| due unless you negotiate otherwise, and the lack of
| autopay is irrelevant.
|
| If you're worried about funds disappearing unexpectedly,
| many major U.S. banks wave checking account fees with
| direct deposits setup. It's trivial to setup a bank
| account with multiple checking/savings accounts, where
| one account is funded as necessary with expected
| spending, and have the excess go into the other
| checking/savings account(s).
|
| That's a best practice anyway, since having a debit card
| hacked into is a much bigger ordeal than a credit card,
| so keeping that checking account with minimal funds is
| optimal.
| manicdee wrote:
| > if you accrue a 17k bill for a service then that's
| what's due
|
| Au contraire: every time I have had a large bill it has
| been because the biller stuffed up.
|
| Water utility couldn't read the water meter because of
| the dog so they estimated based on past usage. I don't
| have a dog. They estimated using someone else's meter.
| They overcharged me by an order of magnitude.
|
| Electricity utility couldn't read the meter because of
| the dog, so they too estimated based on past usage.
| Again, I don't have a dog and they estimated based on the
| average usage of a house my size (typically a family of 4
| to 8). They overcharged me by a factor of three or so.
|
| At one point I changed my mobile phone plan to one that
| had a special offer going. It took three months for the
| company to get the amount right, and then it took another
| three months to get my money back for the first three
| months they billed incorrectly.
|
| With any system that has variable costs (such as usage
| fees) I far prefer to receive a bill and pay it by hand
| because it only takes one error to completely wipe me out
| financially.
|
| Note about the dog above: at one point the utility
| company wanted access to my yard to perform some
| maintenance on the electricity transmission lines (in my
| town the aerial electrical services are in the back yard
| to improve the street aesthetic). I asked them to please
| call me so I can lock up my chickens. The person I talked
| to didn't have a box to tick for "chickens" so they
| ticked the box that said "dog". Since then I have not had
| a meter reader actually read my meters, every bill is
| "estimated because of dog." I have to take a photo of the
| meter and send it in to them because they're too lazy to
| read it themselves.
| jjav wrote:
| If some service suddenly tries to charge 17K it's almost
| certainly an error on their part.
|
| With autopay that error can propagate into draining your
| account and then all your other autopay accounts that
| come later get rejected and you'll get penalties and late
| charges on those.
|
| The first provider, the one who made a mistake, can be
| talked into correcting it (hopefully anyway). But all the
| other penalties you'll be responsible for since your
| account was indeed empty.
|
| So there are real risks to autopay. Maybe not too
| frequent, but good to be aware.
| ac29 wrote:
| I've known people who received huge bills where it was
| the billing companies fault (such as a bad meter for
| utility service). On autopay, it would have been a real
| chore to claw back the amount overpaid.
| [deleted]
| ArchOversight wrote:
| None of the electric bills in Texas should have been a
| surprise. Those people chose to pay market rate for their
| electricity, that is not always going to turn out well
| for the consumer during events that would lead to market
| rate being completely out of wack.
| ls612 wrote:
| Credit card auto pay only happens 4 weeks or more after the
| charges post. If there is fraudulent activity on your account
| there's lots of time to address it before it becomes a bank
| charge.
| coliveira wrote:
| Depends on when the charge was made. If the charge was made
| the day before the scheduled payment, you will have
| problems.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| The autopay typically comes out the last day that you can
| make a payment in the current cycle, which is 20-25 days
| after the cycle closes. You'll always have a minimum 2-3
| weeks to review the charges before the autopay goes out.
| wmf wrote:
| Also AFAIK you can still dispute charges after you have
| paid them; if you win the dispute you'll get credited
| later.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Shouldn't be true because that should go in the next
| month
| vecinu wrote:
| Sorry but how is this dangerous? You don't have your credit
| cards on autopay?
|
| I regularly verify what transactions show up across my cards
| and you have 30 days to dispute anything.
|
| 10+ years and I never had an issue.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I don't actually auto pay any of my credit cards.
|
| I keep my checking account balance intentionally low and
| often run into times where paying off my cards would
| overdraft me.
|
| I don't think it's all that crazy of a thing to do, I just
| don't do it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Same here. I carefully plan my bill paying schedule so as
| to never go below zero in my checking account. Sometimes
| that involves deferring payments until the next paycheck.
| With AutoPay I give up that ability to schedule exactly
| when the money goes out.
|
| Additionally, I like to review every bill I pay to make
| sure it makes sense. I've had to dispute bills in the
| past that were unexplainably incorrect by $10, $20,
| sometimes close to $50, and if I had them on AutoPay I
| probably wouldn't have even noticed it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Every card which I've owned has allowed an option to
| autopay the minimum payment. This way you don't have to
| deal with accidentally missing a payment which can be
| quite costly.
|
| That said, the real solution here is to not spend more
| than you can pay off. Every time you carry over your
| balance, it's a big win for the credit companies. If you
| get to the end of the pay period and your card balance is
| greater than your checking balance, then you lose.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Some people use their CC as an accounts payable. It acts
| like a buffer to give you time to dispute BS nuisance
| charges.
| coliveira wrote:
| I don't autopay credit cards. I only do this for accounts
| that have fixed value and require little overseeing, e.g.,
| car payments. Any of my credit cards are payed only when I
| review the amount and make the decision.
| kbelder wrote:
| I think the posters touting autopay should review the
| 'experience of being poor-ish'
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26300139
|
| I'd _never_ let any major bills pull directly from my
| accounts. I'm bothered just by having a recurring Netflix
| draw. I'm not claiming one perspective is right and the other
| wrong... but that my history and experiences have strongly
| trained me into one behavior, and yours into another.
| brundolf wrote:
| Important detail:
|
| > The only thing Apple Card was paying for was the 2TB iCloud
| upgrade -- and when I try to change the payment method, it
| refuses and says "Your account has been disabled in the App Store
| and iTunes."
|
| It's not hard to imagine a payment issue for iCloud causing
| iCloud to be locked or otherwise limited, and given that Apple's
| online services tend to be buggy and unreliable it's not a huge
| stretch to think this could have some unintended consequences for
| adjacent things like the App Store. As someone else in the thread
| pointed out, surely others have missed Apple Card payments at
| this point, and we would've already heard about this if it were
| consistent and/or by design.
|
| Of course even if it wasn't intentional, it's still another
| example of the single-point-of-failure problem we have when our
| entire lives depend on an account with a tech company that's way
| too big to care when users fall through the cracks.
| ksec wrote:
| Are you suggesting it is a fraud detection? Which sounds like
| one if he was changing payment info. ( Like doing it with VPN )
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm suggesting it was something like "Your payment for iCloud
| didn't go through, so we locked iCloud, and whoops our system
| is a mess so I guess you can't use the App Store or iTunes
| either, maybe, although it's possible you're just getting a
| boilerplate error that isn't actually telling you the truth".
| This would be consistent with my past experiences with
| Apple's online services, and it's the reason I don't plan to
| spend money on any of them or rely on them for anything
| important. They're a dumpster-fire; the exact opposite of
| Apple's hardware and (for the most part) their system
| software.
|
| Fraud detection is plausible too, though
| snemvalts wrote:
| You don't even need payment problems, someone can call into the
| support and have your account disabled.
|
| My mom's Apple account was disabled with the same message,
| thought it was billing related as well. It turned out that
| someone with a similar surname had called in and requested
| their account to be disabled, but the call had cut out. The
| support rep happily connected the two dots and disabled my
| mom's account.
| dmix wrote:
| This sounds like Chinas social credit score but on a lower
| threshold.
| choppaface wrote:
| How long until we can get Glass-Steagall for the bank of online
| identity?
| kweinber wrote:
| Lets get Glass-Steagall back for finance first. . .its
| affiliation clauses were totally defanged in 1999 (and likely
| the contributing cause for the crash of 2007-2008). After that
| let's work on identity.
| williesleg wrote:
| That's not a big deal. Bank of America will close your account
| based on your social media score.
| pgm8705 wrote:
| I'm guessing (and hoping) this is a bug and not intentional, but
| this is pretty scary. My digital personal life is almost all
| within Apple's ecosystem, including most of the smart devices in
| my house. Getting locked out for any amount of time would be
| super frustrating.
| fortran77 wrote:
| What makes you believe this is not intentional?
| Bud wrote:
| I've had Apple Card since day one. I'll tell you what makes
| me _certain_ that this is not intentional and is in fact not
| even happening as the user is implying:
|
| -Apple and Goldman Sachs' service with Apple Card has been
| _exemplary_ in every detail
|
| -Apple went out of its way throughout the early months of
| covid to let users skip payments for any reason. No extra
| interest charges
|
| -Apple Card doesn't even have any late fees, or annual fees,
| or fees of any kind. And the app for the card goes out of its
| way to keep you from paying any unnecessary interest charges
|
| -This sort of punitive action just does not jibe with the
| entire nature of the product or Apple's service in general
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Your emphasis is wrong. This is more accurate:
|
| > I'll tell you what makes _me_ certain
|
| And you're now accusing someone of being dishonest due to
| lack of evidence based on your anecdotal experience, also
| absent evidence.
|
| > Apple and Goldman Sachs' service with Apple Card has been
| exemplary in every detail
|
| So that makes it "certainly" not possible that someone can
| have a sub-par customer sevice interaction?
|
| > Apple Card doesn't even have any late fees
|
| You're right. Good for them. They absolutely will charge
| you "additional interest" on top of your current APR for
| any late fees, however. That gets the same net effect,
| while providing a nice little soundbite.
| ktta wrote:
| Maybe because it's been quite a while since Apple Card was
| released and this is the first time we're hearing about it?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| So they haven't refined their processes since Launch Day?
| davismwfl wrote:
| This is not a bug, this is by design. There is no possible way
| this wasn't spec'd as a test scenario to force payment
| compliance. They know they have leverage that a bank wouldn't
| have so they are using it.
| Bud wrote:
| Please don't spread unsupported rumors like this unless you
| are willing to back them up with evidence.
| _jal wrote:
| And you know this.. how?
|
| Or are you simply following a chain of assumptions to a place
| that meets your opinion of Apple?
| davismwfl wrote:
| I added some clarification in another reply.
|
| To your point, I don't know for fact just as you don't know
| for fact I'm wrong. And this could even be a false claim
| without having some sort of proof. Maybe my wording was to
| deterministic and should've been worded as more a
| "possibility", but a complex system like this takes a ton
| of requirements and testing and it is super hard to see
| Apple not paying attention to this specific issue.
|
| You don't know my opinion of Apple. I generally like Apple
| and use them for quite a lot of things. Sure, maybe they
| are priced too high on some hardware (IMO) and some app
| store policies I dislike but overall I don't view them as
| evil and I build things for their platform because it is
| worth it. Apple simply takes advantage of their platform
| and why wouldn't they?
|
| My one complaint with Apple is just wanting to know all the
| rules ahead of time so we can play by the rules, and
| sometimes it does feel like we find many of the rules out
| through this type of scenario versus Apple being 100%
| transparent up front.
| temp667 wrote:
| "This is not a bug, this is by design."
|
| Please provide some clearer support for this statement of
| supposed fact.
|
| We've got so many MUCH MORE likely scenarios.
|
| These are the common ones that disable or lock account:
|
| * Repeatedly entering an incorrect Apple ID and password. *
| Not using your Apple account for an extended amount of time *
| Billing issues such as unpaid iTunes or App Store orders *
| Security reasons * Charge disputes on your credit card
|
| I've yet to hear of a missed payment on an apple card
| resulting in this (and I have an apple card and have missed
| payments).
| 0x0 wrote:
| Are you saying anyone can disable anyone else's appleid by
| just hammering https://appleid.apple.com with their email
| address and bogus password?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| And most unfortunately, there is no regulation yet that would
| allow you to file a complaint with the CFPB or other
| regulatory body (maybe in California, with regards to access
| to your personal data under CCPA?) over Apple's overreach as
| a credit facilitator (as Goldman is the issuer for the card)
| if this is verified as expected behavior.
| breatheoften wrote:
| Wow if this actually is expected behavior then the backlash
| the first time this hits someone prominent in political
| space is definitely going to produce the regulations that
| you point to as currently non-existent ...
| davismwfl wrote:
| First, of course I could be wrong on this (or it could be a
| false claim as some have suggested), but a few reasons I said
| this is intentional and not a defect of code.
|
| 1. The OP in a response tweet said it took ~15 days before
| his accounts were disabled and a few more before he linked to
| two things together. Meaning likely there is a process that
| the bank handling the actual card sends details to Apple on
| some interval which says who is late etc, and when Apple got
| it they then process the disabling of accounts.
|
| 2. If it was unintentional I'd expect Apple to have an easy
| and quick resolution to fixing it, and I'd also think if
| Apple's systems were that linked it would have happened more
| immediate not taken ~15 days.
|
| 3. The reason it would take 3-5 days to re-enable the Apple
| ID's and associated services would be because the bank has to
| update their records for payment and then send notice to
| Apple that the user is current, hence it isn't an immediate
| task and takes a small process with associated delays. This
| fits the description of what the user stated.
|
| Lastly, personally, Apple has been helpful to me in the past
| when a company I was working with had an issue with our
| corporate Apple ID & services. Apple support were able to
| unlock the account (and associated services) after just a
| couple of hours of back and forth and they were clear their
| managers had clear ability to enable/disable Apple ID's. I am
| sure they have some decision tree they use but it was
| immediate once the support woman told me it was reactivated I
| could immediately log in, no delay.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| It sounds like you're "over-exposed" to Apple in this risk
| category
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| This sounds outrageous, do they really think this is worth the
| bad PR? Or the lost revenue from not letting people pay with
| another card while they work out the issue. There has to be more
| to this story, this can't be the first person to miss a payment.
| hahahahe wrote:
| Wouldn't use this product considering that it's Goldman Sachs
| backend. What a horrible company and a damn shame Apple partnered
| with them.
| codecamper wrote:
| You would too if Mohammed bin Salman was your investor!
| newbie578 wrote:
| Their platform their choice, right? If you don't like it, don't
| use it..
|
| /s if not obv
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This is one of the areas where consumers are losing their rights
| because of leverage by foundational companies.
|
| I think it should be illegal for a company to block your account
| on unrelated services. For example, Facebook should not be able
| to block your Occulus account, based on what happens on Facebook
| or WhatsApp. If the companies argue that these accounts are tied
| to closely together to be able to separate enforcement like that,
| the answer should be, "too bad, then you can't block at all,
| until you figure out how to separate the service blocks."
| zepto wrote:
| > it should be illegal for a company to block your account on
| unrelated services
|
| According to the OP, they haven't - Sign In with Apple still
| works.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| And by extension all the services you sign in to using a
| (mandatory) sign in with Apple button.
| dcurtis wrote:
| Actually, Sign in with Apple is one of the only things that
| still works.
| protomyth wrote:
| I wonder if that is by design, or the fact it was an added
| service after Apple Card and maybe has some isolation.
| ksec wrote:
| I think they changed that after the EPIC case. Read my other
| reply on the subject.
| jvzr wrote:
| The presence of the button is mandatory, your use of it is not.
| Gys wrote:
| Like Apple Card, like Facebook, like Google... ;-)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| It's not even mandatory unless the app offers other auth
| providers like Google and Facebook. If your app is based
| around old fashioned email and password sign-in you don't
| need to include Sign In with Apple at all.
| meetups323 wrote:
| But ugh please do. From the end user's perspective I 100%
| do not want to navigate your app's account creation process
| bouncing back and forth between my email client and your
| website and your app (if the redirect works, which it
| probably wont), and I 100% do not want to give your app my
| actual email address. Just implement apple's Auth flow.
| It's not that hard.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| And the reason the redirect is broken, more often than
| not, is because there's analytics sitting somewhere in
| the stack that's either not working properly because it's
| inherently brittle or because it's getting blocked by my
| adblocker.
|
| I understand the need for analytics in some situations
| but registration, signin, recovery, etc are critical
| paths and every layer of indirection is playing with
| fire.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, refusing to implement sign-in with Apple is anti-
| user: as a user I want to use sign-in with Apple (and
| Apple Pay) everywhere I can, forcing me to use some other
| product for these functions is not good UX.
| Closi wrote:
| Wowza, that's a quick and efficient way to add another antitrust
| complaint to your list.
| sneak wrote:
| After a decade deep into the Apple/iOS ecosystem, I now make a
| unique disposable Apple ID for each and every mobile device, and
| eschew all paid apps. I don't use iCloud at all. I don't use an
| Apple ID on desktops at all, save for one that has its own
| disposable one for certain essential apps that are not available
| elsewhere (Apple Configurator 2 is required to restore M1 macs).
|
| Making entirely unlinked/unique Apple IDs is expensive because
| each one requires a working phone number to create.
|
| This is really the only safe approach these days, given nonsense
| like this.
|
| Because iCloud Backup is non-e2e (like most of iCloud) and thus
| permits Apple (and the FBI by extension without a warrant) to
| read whatever they want out of your phone's contents, I have to
| do manual corded backups periodically because Apple doesn't have
| their cryptographic shit together. :/
|
| I have one old wiped phone that is signed in to my ~decade-old
| Apple ID for managing my Apple Card, which cannot be moved
| between Apple IDs (just like your purchases). I'll probably
| cancel the card soon and delete that account. I've already
| replaced all of the movies I foolishly bought years ago on iTunes
| with torrented copies.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| > I don't use an Apple ID on desktops at all, save for one that
| has its own disposable one for certain essential apps that are
| not available elsewhere (Apple Configurator 2 is required to
| restore M1 macs).
|
| I don't get how this works. I feel like you need an Apple ID on
| a macbook to do the most basic of crap, and unfortunately, they
| make it SUPER hard to log out of one Apple ID and into another
| one on the same computer. You have to do it individually in 4-5
| different places for it to actually work.
| caeril wrote:
| > because each one requires a working phone number to create
|
| This isn't true. I have an email-only apple account that works
| fine. My lock screen constantly carries a "Verify your phone
| number" badge that's rather annoying, but otherwise everything
| functions.
| ValentineC wrote:
| I believe they've started requiring phone numbers and some
| form of SMS two-factor authentication on new accounts.
|
| (I've gone through this recently when I created a new,
| separate account.)
| amelius wrote:
| So... it works until it doesn't? What if you are traveling
| and Apple decides they really need your phone number this
| time, and locks you out of your stuff?
| oarsinsync wrote:
| What if you are traveling and Apple decides they really
| need another identifier, and locks you out of your stuff?
| Axien wrote:
| Years ago I had "Fraud" detected on my Apple ID. Because of this,
| Apple locked my account and disabled all of my paid applications.
| I'm a pilot and this included an iPad program called ForeFlight
| which was critical for flying. I had to wipe my iPad, create a
| new Apple ID, and pay the $300 subscription for another copy of
| ForeFlight. About a week later my ID was reactivated with no
| explanation.
|
| I'm assuming someone hacked into my Apple ID, but not sure. I was
| never told.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| All this speculation about whether or not it's true, or what
| might or might have happened. If only there was some format one
| could use on the internet that was useful for discussing
| something in longer-than-240-character statements. If only.
|
| I canceled Twitter so that I wouldn't have to see these tempests
| in teacups. Once you do this, your eyes open to just how much of
| our news cycle is being carried by Twitter, and how much it
| bleeds over into everything else now. Half the "front page" of
| Imgur is Twitter hot takes now, so I don't go there any more
| either. Half of serious news articles seem to either be ABOUT a
| Tweet, or carry at least one Twitter quote to further its
| narrative. I think this encroachment should alarm everyone.
|
| #SocialMediaIsDestroyingSociety
| IgorPartola wrote:
| How come I am seeing surprising behavior from various Apple
| products multiple times a week at this point? Is it a new thing
| or is it just that they are huge and everyone is paying attention
| to them?
| zepto wrote:
| Weird, isn't it. I mean Facebook is openly leading a push to
| discredit Apple.
|
| That doesn't mean Facebook is somehow behind these posts, but
| their attempt could be working and causing people to report
| things more.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| These posts do have a very specific feel to them, in that
| it's about how a perfectly rational engineering decision
| leads to bad UX. Upgrades that lock down the system further
| are probably good for most people, but not for developers.
| Missed payment leads to account lockdown is how an engineer
| would think to set things up, but not someone who's
| advocating for the user's experience. All the stuff with
| their new chips.
|
| You could be right that this is someone sniping at their
| issues and maybe playing the market at the same time. Even if
| it is a larger evil competitor, these do seem like legitimate
| problems.
| zepto wrote:
| > Even if it is a larger evil competitor, these do seem
| like legitimate problems.
|
| I'm asserting that they _are_ likely to be legitimate.
|
| My suggestion is that the reason we are hearing about them
| so much at the moment _could_ be Facebook's influence in
| setting a tone which encourages people to write about
| problems we didn't otherwise hear about.
|
| But yes - it absolutely could be a symptom of a breakdown
| in management somewhere in Apple leading to more customer
| unfriendly policy outcomes. It wouldn't be the first time
| they have gone through such phases.
| [deleted]
| mrtksn wrote:
| Wow, I hope this is a bug or similar. Wouldn't the card be issued
| by a partner bank? How this is supposed to legally implicit the
| products you buy from a separate company? Could it be that when
| the the card fails, the services paid by that card also fail to
| receive the payment, thus they get locked until a payment is
| made?
|
| I remember stories about having an issue with an account on a
| Google property and losing all your access to all your Google
| accounts.
|
| It's a prime reason to buy services from different companies.
| BoberMod wrote:
| Can user continue to use apple devices? MacBook, iPhone? Or are
| they also blocked?
| kevindong wrote:
| This *FEELS* (not saying it is) like a false claim. Much like the
| much upvoted (and later debunked) HN post from a while back when
| a iOS developer claimed that Apple always keeps it 30%
| commission, even on a refunded purchase.
|
| I consider it worrying that a claim wholly lacking evidence is
| getting so much attention.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23995750
| dcurtis wrote:
| I didn't expect that tweet to get so much attention; I'll write
| up some more details shortly.
| sksixk wrote:
| Seriously?
| totalZero wrote:
| Do you have any evidence aside from a feeling? Just curious.
| rblatz wrote:
| This would be egregious behavior by Apple, and the Apple Card
| has been out long enough that there would be numerous reports
| of this that gained steam by now. It's also been out long
| enough and distributed to enough people that someone
| somewhere was likely to encounter two issues with Apple at
| about the same time. So it's much more likely that Apple
| doesn't just suspend all your accounts until you pay up.
| totalZero wrote:
| That's a very different argument from "this feels false,"
| which is just some subjective bullshit. However, your
| argument is little better.
|
| You're saying "it stands to reason that a widely used
| product would have already hit this corner case by now."
| The problem with your argument is that it's a tautology. If
| in fact the statement by dcurtis is the first efflorescence
| of the problem, your line of thinking would reject it
| anyway.
|
| That's why it's useless to say "this feels wrong" or even
| "surely we would know by now." The guy who wrote the tweet
| has already said here in HN comments that he will
| substantiate what he wrote, so it seems unnecessary to
| dogpile the skepticism and "feelings" in the interim.
|
| You don't have to accept a logical proposition in order to
| consider/entertain it.
| zepto wrote:
| > If in fact the statement by dcurtis is the first
| efflorescence of the problem, your line of thinking would
| reject it anyway.
|
| This is true, but we have to take it in context. How
| likely is it that this is the policy, and we've never
| heard about it before now?
|
| The card has been our for a couple of years. Millions of
| people are using it. This implies 10s of millions of
| payments. At a conservative estimate this would mean
| there must have been thousands of missed payments, and
| therefore thousands of locked Apple accounts.
|
| It therefore seems unlikely we wouldn't have heard about
| it. I could of course be wrong as could the GP, because
| this is just a probability estimate. But that's all the
| GP is saying.
| totalZero wrote:
| Thanks, and I agree with you. But policies can change, so
| it's a fair conversation to have if in fact the stated
| thing happened. People seem to think that "is there
| evidence for what you said" is some kind of abusive reply
| but that should be table stakes for most claims. The guy
| in the tweet already said he'd write something up, but
| the people who said he is probably stating falsehoods
| just came up with that based on a gut feeling.
|
| Me personally, Apple repeatedly locked (not disabled) my
| account earlier this year when they weren't able to
| process a payment. PayPal had authorized but not charged
| an M1 laptop I had ordered with a non-English keyboard,
| and somehow the order hung. My bank and PayPal showed the
| authorization, but Apple showed it as "hold" due to
| unsuccessful payment. Customer service wasn't able to
| push the order through without taking credit card
| information directly, and I ended up canceling the order,
| which means I lose my place in the order queue.
|
| Based on my recent experience, I wouldn't be surprised if
| Apple had some issues with payment processing. The reason
| that I care about this particular topic is that I'm
| considering doing the re-order of the M1 laptop with
| Apple Card financing. That's why chaff like "it feels
| false lol" is not useful information for me.
| zepto wrote:
| > But policies can change, so it's a fair conversation to
| have if in fact the stated thing happened.
|
| Yes, but it's a not a fair conversation to start by
| spreading a false statement.
|
| If we're just speculating about the policies, headlines
| like the one on this post are simply not true.
|
| Right now, that may be exactly what has happened.
| setr wrote:
| >The problem with your argument is that it's a tautology.
| If in fact the statement by dcurtis is the first
| efflorescence of the problem, your line of thinking would
| reject it anyway
|
| No its not; it's defining a probability. This report is
| most likely false, because it would be unlikely for this
| to be the first instance of it. It's not defining a
| logical proposition -- that's just you extracting more
| gaurantees from the statement than what was actually
| specified. It's not _if this then that_ , it's _if
| probably this, then probably that_.
|
| And it's valid to state it "feels false", if only because
| _extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence_ --
| the same way it 's valid to not significantly consider
| the claim "I saw an alien" stated on its own. Yes, there
| is a possibility it's true, and yes, its not valid to
| declare it false only on the basis that aliens are
| involved, but it would be unreasonable to assume that
| possibility it is true is significant based on the claim
| alone.
|
| It is perfectly valid to _assume_ it 's false, because
| the likelihood of the alternative is low. It is not valid
| to declare it false for the same reasoning; but no one in
| this chain did such a thing.
| totalZero wrote:
| You're conflating two different parent comments; I'll
| take them separately.
|
| If you think something "feels false" but you have no
| evidence for it, that's not a particularly strong basis
| for reasoning.
|
| >it's defining a probability.
|
| This is not true. It's classifying the first instance as
| false.
| setr wrote:
| > _If you think something "feels false" but you have no
| evidence for it, that's not a particularly strong basis
| for reasoning._
|
| That's true, but an _extraordinary claim without
| extraordinary evidence_ is also not a particularly strong
| basis for reasoning.
|
| and from the original post...
|
| >* I consider it worrying that a claim wholly lacking
| evidence is getting so much attention.*
|
| That is, the conclusion reached by twitter is not well-
| reasoned, which gives kevindong the well-reasoned
| conclusion: it's probably false.
|
| > _It 's classifying the first instance as false._
|
| > _This *FEELS* (not saying it is) like a false claim._
|
| I'm not clear how you can read this as anything other
| than a probability. It says nothing about the premise,
| and it clearly specifies that the conclusion has not been
| [definitively] classified.
|
| Otherwise, if that ain't the money-quote, I don't know
| what you're reading but it's not what I'm reading.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| It's also possible that this is new behavior on Apple's
| part.
| kevindong wrote:
| The onus of providing proof is on the claimant. At the time
| of writing, there was none.
|
| I agree with rblatz's response's reasoning.
| totalZero wrote:
| You're making a claim too, kevindong.
|
| I'm just asking whether there's any meat to your claim.
|
| I can tell from your response that there is not. For
| example, evidence would be "this happened to me and I
| didn't encounter the same consequences for my Apple
| account."
| zepto wrote:
| > "this happened to me and I didn't encounter the same
| consequences for my Apple account."
|
| You can see other commenters on this thread saying
| exactly this.
|
| E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26307849
| totalZero wrote:
| That comment is from a different user and was posted an
| hour after the one to which I replied.
| zepto wrote:
| > That comment is from a different user
|
| What does that matter?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's just noise/bullshit on Twitter.
|
| The Apple Card t&c are here:
| https://www.goldmansachs.com/terms-and-conditions/Apple-Card...
|
| They prominently mention any reference to iCloud, etc as your
| "Apple ID" and "account" is used with respect to the financial
| account. On page 11, consequences of "Default" include
| suspension of your "account". You are required to use a
| "Required Device", and specifically an Apple ID in "good
| standing" with Apple and Apple two-factor auth.
|
| My guess is that if anything happened to this guy, he did
| something to fubar his Apple ID, which then fubared his Apple
| Card.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Yes, I don't think Apple Card has anything to do with it - I
| think his iCloud subscription was past due and _that_ was that
| disabled his account - and then he found himself in a Catch 22
| where he couldn 't update/pay his Apple Card because he was
| locked out of iCloud. I'd imagine the same would have happened
| if he let his Visa card lapse.
| dcurtis wrote:
| Nope -- iCloud was not past due. It is an Apple Card policy.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| What is an Apple Card policy?
| jbtule wrote:
| Apples Customer agreement->
|
| Definition ->
|
| "Account" means the Apple Card consumer credit account
| opened for you under this Agreement
|
| Default actions ->
|
| WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF BEING IN DEFAULT If you are in
| default, we may take any of the following actions to the
| extent permitted under applicable law: * Continue to charge
| you interest as long as you have an outstanding Account
| balance; * Lower your credit limit; * Decline or otherwise
| limit your ability to make Transactions; * Report
| information about your Account to the credit reporting
| bureaus; * Begin collections activities; * Suspend or close
| your Account; * Require you to immediately pay all or any
| portion of your total outstanding balance (this action may
| also be taken upon death); * If we retain an attorney who
| is not our salaried employee to collect amounts you owe, we
| may require you to pay for the court costs and reasonable
| attorneys' fees that we actually incur; and/or * Take any
| other action permitted by law.
| dmix wrote:
| > Suspend or close your Account
|
| I guess account is one whole system the way they built it
| so it includes his iCloud and whatnot.
|
| This should be last resort solution for Apple. I'm
| thinking well past 3 months of notifications or
| something, maybe even a year, considering it goes beyond
| just the card itself.
|
| Or just not have it affect other services at all.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| It's not, at all. I have an Apple Card. My Apple Card
| account is totally separate from my iCloud account.
| Bud wrote:
| It's not an Apple Card policy. At all. And you didn't post
| any convincing evidence of that.
| subhro wrote:
| Can you point out any public documentation about this
| policy?
| breck wrote:
| This is not a false claim. I didn't miss a payment, but
| complained about a $10 WaPost recurring charge via their chat
| support and they went ahead and locked my account (I think they
| were trying to be helpful but this fucked things up royally).
| This was many months ago. The support has been nice, but
| completely neutered. I have screenshots. I've spoken to 8
| people and no one can figure it out. I can't log in, pay, or
| close the account. The only way I still know there is some
| account in the ether is I get notifications on my phone that
| I'm being charged interest and letters in the mail I'm being
| charged interest.
|
| For the record, I always pay the balance in full and until this
| I loved the UI and the product. But boy what a fucked up
| support experience and they should probably end relationship
| with Goldman and just stick to apple pay. There are about 6
| points of total failure in the support experience. I could only
| spend so many hours holding their fucking hands before I had to
| give up.
|
| I emailed TCook about this on 11/10/2020.
|
| I greatly regret signing up for Apple Card and please DON'T. It
| was the best card until it stopped working, then it's the worse
| card I've ever had. I stick to Apple Pay now with an amex.
|
| I'd also recommend using PayPal for recurring charged. 1 click
| to see all recurring charges and 1 click to cancel. Apple needs
| this ASAP.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| This has nothing to do with the Twitter complaint. Are you
| locked out of iCloud? If not, then it's not the same at all.
| breck wrote:
| I had to change all my iCloud credentials. I couldn't
| believe there was any linkages between the 2 things. Seemed
| insane and dangerous to me. Luckily I was able to get back
| into my iCloud/Apple. I just assumed the Apple Card was
| like any credit card. But I learned the hard way that it is
| not, and it's dangerous to mess with.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I keep refreshing these comments and the twitter thread to see
| if any better info is provided. This is the kind of thing that
| could be a mistake on Apple's side, could be a lie from the
| user, or could be a misunderstanding of what actually happened.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I don't think the OP is lying. Their account was probably
| locked because they missed a payment. I do think this is a
| misunderstanding of what's happening.
|
| They're paying for iCloud with their Apple Card. If that
| payment fails, the account can be locked.
|
| So it's not "Missing a payment on the Apple Card locks your
| account" it might be "Missing an iCloud Payment locks your
| account."
|
| They also say the iCloud payment wasn't past due. I wouldn't
| be surprised if this was some weird edge case or bug that
| caused the account to be locked.
| yardie wrote:
| This doesn't sound like how iCloud, Apple Card, and Apple
| ID work.
|
| I stopped paying for iCloud and it didn't diable my Apple
| ID nor my Apple Card.
|
| Also you don't have past due iCloud accounts. You stop
| paying iCloud services stop working for you.
|
| Sounds like something else is a going on here.
| dcurtis wrote:
| I didn't expect that tweet to get so much attention. I plan to
| write more about what exactly happened when my accounts are re-
| activated.
|
| But to clear a couple of things up:
|
| 1. I've since learned that the reason this happened could be due
| to an unusual confluence of events including Apple Card, autopay,
| and the online Apple Store.
|
| 2. The disabling of iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID accounts _is_
| actually an Apple Card policy for overdue accounts, and they have
| a team dedicated to handling these account de-activation issues.
| (I think this is absurd, which is why I am drawing attention to
| it.)
| komocode wrote:
| > The disabling of iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID accounts is
| actually an Apple Card policy for overdue accounts
|
| My understanding is that the Apple Card policy is referring to
| "account" as "Apple Card Account is issued by Goldman Sachs
| Bank USA", and not the iCloud account issued by Apple.
| wbronitsky wrote:
| This poster continues to fling accusations at Apple and has yet
| to provide any proof of any of these suppositions whatsoever.
| I'm not sure why the commenters are so eager to believe a
| comment from a random Twitter account posted to HN.
| Confirmation bias is strong, I guess.
|
| This is a heavy accusation and I think the burden is heavily on
| the accuser to provide clear evidence that lack of payment for
| anything somehow locks you out of your Apple account. These
| comments and posts also seem to be conflating different
| accounts, like Apple ID, iCloud, and the Apple Card Account.
|
| I'm in no way trying to defend Apple, this just seems like an
| incredibly user hostile policy, and also one that doesn't
| exactly follow sound business logic.
|
| If this is true, can you point to this policy? Can you share
| the "unusual confluence of events"?
| Bud wrote:
| Downvoting of this comment is ludicrous.
|
| This is a very serious accusation and it's irresponsible to
| fling around such charges without evidence.
|
| There's no way Apple is doing this.
| [deleted]
| jefftk wrote:
| _> I'm not sure why the commenters are so eager to believe a
| comment from a random Twitter account posted to HN._
|
| dcurtis isn't a random Twitter account; he's a regular here
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dcurtis) and made
| svbtle.
|
| He has credibility here, and I think a lot of the upvotes
| (including mine) are based on expecting he wouldn't say
| something like this without a good reason.
| wbronitsky wrote:
| > he has credibility here
|
| I don't even know how to respond to this appeal to
| amorphous authority, and to reply to the best possible
| interpretation of the post, I'll pass over it.
|
| I'm sure this person is not lying that their account was
| shut down; I'm asking for an accounting of the Apple policy
| that supposedly exists. It would certainly be something I
| would be deeply concerned about.
| notJim wrote:
| The level of evidence you're expecting is unreasonable given
| the events. Consider it from his perspective, which is what
| most of us are doing:
|
| You suddenly notice that you can't access any of the stuff
| you need to live out your life. Oh fuck. You make a tweet in
| a panic, and maybe hoping to get some attention, since the
| faceless trillion dollar company doesn't give a fuck about
| you.
|
| The tweet blows up, and wbronitsky comes along demanding more
| information. A clear timeline, strong evidence, legal
| arguments etc etc. Meanwhile this poor guy is just trying to
| get his shit back.
|
| Trust me, Apple pays plenty of people to run interference for
| them. You don't need to do it for free.
| wbronitsky wrote:
| I think my posting history would show that I'm far from a
| company shill. It would be cool to respond to the best
| interpretation of my post, instead of the worst, maybe.
|
| Either way, I'm sure this person had their account frozen;
| I'm merely wondering how this person knows that there is
| policy at Apple to intentionally do such things.
| zepto wrote:
| > The disabling of iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID accounts is
| actually an Apple Card policy for overdue accounts
|
| Do you have any more information on this?
|
| It sounds alarming when stated without further context, because
| it makes it sounds like a slightly overdue payment _could_
| cause an instant shutdown of ones account.
|
| You originally seemed to be saying this is what happened, but
| now you are saying it's not that simple.
|
| I would be very surprised if my Apple account was locked out
| after 15 days of non payment of my card.
|
| I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was locked out (for
| example) after 100 days, especially if I hadn't communicated
| with them.
|
| Another reason for it to be locked out might be fraud
| detection, in which case I might actively _want_ that, even
| thought it occasionally causes inconvenience.
|
| One is indeed absurd and _very salient_ to all Apple users, the
| other two would be unsurprising and frankly of no real concern.
| _At this point we don't know where on the spectrum the policy
| actually lies._
|
| So without more context, #2 seems like a potentially very
| serious claim that could later turn out not to be so bad.
|
| This is a common way damaging misinformation starts to spread.
|
| I'm not for a second suggesting this is your intent, but I am
| pointing out that this is a likely effect, dependent on what
| the context actually turns out to be.
|
| Edit: also worth noting that the tweet, and the HN headline are
| worded in an unequivocal way. It seems like as written, they
| may simply be false based on what you have now said.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Can't verify this myself, but if true - this seems like part of a
| growing problem with big-tech, that everything is connected to
| one account, and as far as risk goes - you (the consumer) are
| putting all your eggs in one basket.
|
| I understand WHY companies do this, with respect to spam accounts
| and what not, but the false positives for real human users can be
| devastating, when every service and product connected to your
| account gets blocked/bricked.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I remember some story about the Soviet Union. People whose
| records had been lost could end up completely shut out from the
| system. Can't get a job, housing, etc.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| I don't have a US credit score because I never had a credit card
| in my life and always bought everything with money I knew I had
| (including my little home).
|
| That never fails to completely throw financial institutions for a
| loop; they can't conceptualize it.
|
| Ironically it means that if I was to apply for a credit card it
| would be very difficult to get it.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > always bought everything with money I knew I had
|
| You can do this with a credit card, fwiw, but i'm sure i'm not
| the first to tell you this.
|
| I don't think we should glorify debt avoidance, and avoidance
| of financial tools (like CCards) as the only, or best, way to
| be financial responsible. It works for some people, but that
| doesn't mean its for everyone or should be a goal.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >That never fails to completely throw financial institutions
| for a loop; they can't conceptualize it.
|
| They can conceptualize it. No one has come up with an automated
| way to adequately predict someone's ability to repay a loan
| other than the current credit reporting system that greatly
| factors in one's history of repaying previous loans. If you
| have a better idea, it's probably worth a lot of money.
|
| >Ironically it means that if I was to apply for a credit card
| it would be very difficult to get it.
|
| It wouldn't be very difficult to get. You would just have to
| submit proof of your assets and possibly history of expenses.
| amwelles wrote:
| Depends on the card you apply for. I didn't have a credit score
| until my mid 20s because I avoided them like the plague and
| bought only with money I had. Now I still do the latter, but I
| get rewards for using a credit card for purchases. My very
| first credit card had a very small limit ($250-500, I think),
| and I only used it for groceries.
|
| Not to say everybody needs a credit card/score, but they do
| have advantages if you're responsible with them. :)
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| In other countries at least, there are score-builder credit
| cards that come with relatively high interest (and presumably
| capped credit limits) to allow high-risk borrowers such as
| yourself to build up their credit history. Once you use one of
| these for a while and pay it off every month, you would start
| building up a credit history/credit score that would allow you
| access to better lending deals.
| ksec wrote:
| Apple has done it before. So I am not surprised.
|
| John Gruber ( and only him ) [1] suggest Epic was making things
| up when Apple would terminate Sign in with Apple on EPIC's App.
| While I dont fully side with EPIC on their case against Apple, on
| this issue alone it was clear the fault was on Apple [2].
|
| And imagine you are in a dispute with Apple on this matter for
| longer than 30days without resolution, the time your iCloud would
| keep your backup before it is completely wipe out due to Account
| termination.
|
| [1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/09/29/epic-games-
| unre...
|
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/131179493779778355...
| komocode wrote:
| If you read Tim's tweet, it says in the policy "Ability to
| ENABLE Apple services [like] Sign in with Apple". This makes
| sense as Epic no longer has the ability to enable SIWA on new
| apps.
|
| Says nothing about termination of SIWA on current apps as SIWA
| will continue to work on existing Apps.
|
| I think Tim wasn't being too honest here.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I doubt very much the face-value interpretation here is accurate,
| but it's also a good reminder about the eggs vs. baskets rule.
|
| I use a lot of Apple products and services, but if Apple did this
| to me it would be at worst an inconvenience. Nothing existential
| requires my Apple account. They don't, for example, handle my
| email; I prefer Dropbox to iCloud; etc.
|
| It's not just an Apple thing. Google chicanery could hit someone
| much harder, given how many more folks depend on Google for
| email. It's a great time to review your own services and
| products, and figure out if you have any "portfolio killer"
| dependencies.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Why do we even let Apple do our banking in the first place? I
| can't really imagine a situation where I'd rather let Apple have
| all my banking data instead of some random bank. Centralizing
| your entire digital life like that is begging for identity theft,
| at least from where I'm standing.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Apple does not do any banking in the first place. They are not
| a bank, do not function as a bank, nor do they have any the
| requisite licenses to be a bank.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Not in a legal sense... but the apple credit card through a
| first party apple app only available on an apple phone that
| apple manages the UI and controls the marketing and
| perception is pretty close to an apple bank even if some
| other legal entity has the excel spreadsheet with account
| balances (...obvi not how that really works)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Apple doesn't lend any money, is not owed any money, and
| takes no part in the financing aspect.
|
| If anything, Goldman Sachs is the one that continues to be
| a bank, and Apple is providing the technical front end for
| it. It's the opposite of vertical integration. A tech
| company is doing the tech part, a finance company is doing
| the finance part.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Fundamentally, the issue is that a single company is _allowed_
| to operate a mobile OS, a web browser, an app market, a banking
| solution, physical hardware, retail stores, and various other
| verticals. Google has the exact same problems, for the exact
| same reasons.
|
| Ban vertical integration. The government needs to force
| divestiture of each product category into a separately run
| company.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I very much agree. The security threat it poses is not
| limited to just Apple, and it ultimately leads to a less
| competitive industry overall.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I remember a book from a number of years ago, called
| Jennifer Government:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Government which
| suggested companies ran the world, and were divided into
| two customer loyalty program-based alliances. Everyone
| essentially belonged to one camp or the other, and it's
| surrounding ecosystem. It's hard not to feel that as an
| example of today, where people live in either the Apple or
| Google ecosystems, and only use products or services that
| integrate with that ecosystem.
| alacombe wrote:
| How is such a ban any different than multiple independent
| company owned by the same parent entity (either a company, or
| an individual / group of individual). Each of these company
| having exclusive deal with each others.
|
| You can't ban private property Rights / freedom of
| association.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| You absolutely can, and the government has, banned
| exclusive deals and associations before. The government
| would require that any interactions given between two
| products Google presently offers as something competitors
| can replace either side of, with no special advantage
| permitted to be offered to the formerly Google products,
| for example.
|
| So, for example, Google could be forbidden from requiring
| Google product apps are preloaded on Android phones. They
| could be required to give alternate web browsers and
| account systems equal visibility in new Chrome installs,
| for free. Google could face penalties for injecting Google
| Meet links into Zoom emails received by Gmail users.
|
| The ways the government could prevent Google's self-
| preferencing is a very large matrix.
|
| Apple has some similar examples, though less. I think Epic
| v. Apple will accomplish some big things there,
| particularly around the App Store.
| echelon wrote:
| I'd say this is horizontal integration, but they've built so
| much of a monolith and captured so much commerce, that it
| almost feels like a vertical stack.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Ban vertical integration. The government needs to force
| divestiture of each product category into a separately run
| company.
|
| Can you give an idea for how this law is written? For
| example, where is the line for a company that sells butter?
| Are they able to sell milk? Cheese? Ice cream? Frozen
| dinners? Wholesale to other restaurants? Are they allowed to
| open restaurants where they sell the same things they sell in
| the grocery store?
| thedogeye wrote:
| The modern version of debtors prison. Everything old is new
| again.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Sorry if this is a dumb question but I don't have an iOS device.
| Could you be prevented from using the phone or internet, getting
| an Uber, or accessing your banking info because of this? Is it
| possible for somebody to get stranded if they don't have a
| vehicle or any other phone? This seems like all sorts of horrible
| things could happen if you were travelling when you got locked
| out.
| frizkie wrote:
| That would not be possible, no. You can use an iPhone and all
| of its phone-related features without an Apple account. You
| probably wouldn't be able to download new apps but it wouldn't
| retroactively prevent you from using any existing banking apps
| you might already have on your phone.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Ok, thanks! I didn't know you could use the device with a
| disabled account.
| smoldesu wrote:
| If the question is "could you", then the answer is yes. Apple
| has full control over those APIs on your device, and could
| choose to stop serving them with the press of a button.
|
| If the question is "will they" though, I doubt they'll go that
| far. Apple is super wary of tipping their hand when they're
| holding all of the cards, and an action like this would raise a
| lot of concern, even within the walled garden.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Probably not... unless you used sign-in with apple to sign in,
| and you only had apple pay (which you can't use anyways because
| you already got suspended on that account), and no other cards,
| and all sorts of other unlikely situations put together. But
| someone else reported that Sign-in still works post account
| disable
| monadic7 wrote:
| I'm really curious who thought it was a good idea to use this
| line of credit in the first place.
| kube-system wrote:
| The people who want to borrow thousands of dollars for free.
| monadic7 wrote:
| I don't think that's possible with any line of credit. Our
| entire society is built off of interest rates.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| The apple card actually gives you 0% on apple products
| kube-system wrote:
| There's plenty of zero-percent consumer credit lines.
| Interest rates are certainly not the only way to make money
| by lending money, particularly if you have something to
| sell.
|
| In this instance: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-
| installments/
|
| Buying a Mac on credit is considerably cheaper than buying
| with cash. 12 months of the time-value of money + you get
| 3% cash back.
| danielhlockard wrote:
| No interest if you pay off the balance of the card every
| month. Tons of people do it.
| tuckerman wrote:
| If you are purchasing an apple device, the apple card gives a
| competitive cash back reward. Many people use credit cards
| while always paying the balance in full and use them for
| rewards (you could argue that these rewards are priced into the
| cost of goods so not getting them is leaving money on the
| table).
|
| I think it's reasonable to believe that this system as a whole
| is exploitive and unfair, those with poor credit pay more to
| fund cash back for others and the high interest rates leading
| to circles of debt, but given this is the way it is, I think
| its a perfectly good idea for someone to have an Apple Card
| depending on their circumstances.
| Bud wrote:
| This tweet and claim don't really pass the laugh test, given that
| Apple has gone out of its way to help Apple Card holders who
| needed to skip payments for months in a row during covid.
|
| There's simply no way that Apple is doing this; there is another
| explanation for this _single user_ having this experience and I
| 'm sure that will come out. This isn't found _anywhere_ in Apple
| 's terms of service.
|
| I'll give 10-1 odds on a $100 bet that this isn't happening. Any
| takers?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-03-01 23:03 UTC)