this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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An Apple fan says they lost '20 years of digital life' after using an Apple gift card (www.techradar.com)
submitted 20 hours ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
121 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 15 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

"I wouldn't like to be caught without a second backup." -- Miles Edward O'Brian, Chief of Operations, Deep Space Nine. ("The O'Brian Principle").

"" -- Every free software advocate who has been on about this during the entire past 20 years and up to twice that, warning us about these kind of things.

Either the user controls the...

or, OP article story.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 7 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

I'm kind of confused why someone would try to pay for an ongoing cloud subscription by buying a $500 gift card.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 15 points 8 hours ago

sometimes stores have sales that includes gift cards so you can get $500 of apple credit for 20% off

[–] paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 8 hours ago

Without reading the article, my guess would be a Christmas/birthday gift to them.

[–] IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

Maybe recruiter referral reward. They sometimes pay in gift cards.

[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago

Part of me is glad the liabilities of trusting these companies with the history of your life are validated. If you don't control access, you don't own it.

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 21 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine having all your important data in just one place.

[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 10 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

i'm not doing that. honest. ... how far away do my backups have to be, to not be considered "one place"?

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

You either 1) have a backup or 2) will have a backup next time.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 62 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

How many cases like this aren't making the news? There are probably thousands of people who depend on Apple or Google or Dropbox and are suddenly locked out with no options.

[–] KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I've seen a handful of stories about Apple and Google locking people out of their entire digital lives. I think the reason people seem not to care is that most people don't have the mental bandwidth to go against the grain and move their entire lives off of Apple and Google services, especially when they bought into these devices with the hope of making their lives easier.

Truly, most people don't realize how dependent they are on megacorps. I've been finding that out repeatedly over the last year. I thought I was good because I don't pay for streaming services, buy video games, or order Amazon delivery... then I took inventory and realized how much I actually relied on YouTube, Twitch, Google Drive, and GitHub.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 hours ago

I also think it's hard to imagine that something that bad would happen to someone if they didn't really do something wrong. It seems like an online death penalty punishment, and you'd think that for that they'd really have to have proof that you were doing something horrible. It's hard to believe that they just make mistakes, and that having a human being review these cases costs them a few dollars, so they just let people's lives get ruined to increase their profits by 0.000001%

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago

I personally know somebody whose online Microsoft account got banned with no explanation.

[–] morto@piefed.social 113 points 17 hours ago (7 children)

Friendly advice: never put your entire life in the hands of a corporation!

Also, the migration from local storage to the "cloud" was never a good thing for us, and the small gain in convenience wasn't worth it, but most people don't seem to realize that.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 31 points 16 hours ago (8 children)

Cloud storage allows normal people to better realize a proper 3-2-1 backup strategy though, since it facilitates offsite storage.

That being said, my very important stuff is backed up to more than one cloud provider, just in case.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Cloud storage is fine for your offsite copy as long as you encrypt your data before uploading it. The problem is that a lot of people are using it as their only copy.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 7 points 12 hours ago

I consider it insane to not retain a local backup of anything that is important.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 15 hours ago

Absolutely, then people go and delete the other copies leaving just the cloud, and think that it's somehow fine.

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[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

How long before an AI company buys all the hard drive supplies and foces us to use cloud storage?

[–] morto@piefed.social 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Cloud storage? Oh, that's the wrong mindset. With the "agi", you won't ever need to store data, because everything you need can be generated on-demand /j

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

gpt, play doom for me

[–] phaedrus@piefed.world 7 points 13 hours ago

In the general public's eye: convenience is literally everything

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[–] AnunnakiTrumpCard@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

/c/Selfhosted

[–] rarbg@lemmy.zip 7 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
[–] AnunnakiTrumpCard@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Thank you. Still getting used to this Lemmy World business.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Stupid people do stupid things. Like putting all apples in one basket.

Sometimes the lesson that needs to be learned in order to appreciate backups is hard...

[–] mint_tamas@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

They have backups, that’s not the point. https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

It's not a backup if they don't have at least one rotation in physical possession.

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 149 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Their first party account is an interesting read and available on their blog here:
https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/

The post was updated yesterday with the following:

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.

[–] londos@lemmy.world 84 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

Second Update 14 December 2025: No luck so far, and not looking good. Anyone got a good lawyer to send them a letter and/or help me sue them? paris AT paris.id.au

[–] carrylex@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

help me sue them

[–] bonenode@piefed.social 86 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

Even if they get back and correct all this, I hope the author learns a lesson and begins exporting his digital footprint to other services.

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[–] MudMan@fedia.io 53 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

Not an "apple fan", an apple-focuse software dev deeply embedded in their dev community.

Which I suppose goes a long way to explain them being multiple terabytes in the hole inside Apple's ecosystem, and also why even having a separate backup would definitely not fix their problem in the first place.

[–] bytesonbike@discuss.online 53 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

I think the root issue is still real, regardless of how much koolaid this person drank.

  1. Person buys a gift card from a brick-and-mortar store
  2. Apple says its fraud
  3. Locks account and refuses to elaborate
[–] MudMan@fedia.io 22 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Agreed 100%. I think it's understandable to feel schadenfreude on someone this deeply embedded being bit by the arbitrary business practices of big corpo in a worst case scenario type of situation.

But the problem is the business practices, not the person being affected. The guy's job feeding Apples gargantuan content engine doesn't make this alright.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 6 points 12 hours ago

It's their fault for being born into a world where antitrust laws stopped being enforced a quarter of a century ago. They should do better.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 60 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

If it's not in your hands in an open format it's not yours.

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Why isn't this posted in Leopards Ate My Face?

... this person... trusted... all their files... on someone else's computer?

... they... trusted a giant... tech corporation... to... care about them?

How is this person a developer?

Normally I'd say "clearly this person has never worked in software developement"... but apparently they have, and are just very naive?

... Maybe he just somehow never once spoke with someone who worked with databases ... ???

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 hours ago

He also says that he has backups, so "lost" seems a little apocalyptic. Hard to feel too bad for someone who is that invested in a corporation though.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think you're forgetting that 90% of developers are barely competent at best.

If this upsets the reader and reader's a dev, remember I'm talking about the other people not you =)

[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yus.

I develop software.

I was not upset at that.

I know I'm in the 10%.

Not even barely competent.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

Hey I mean, honest self-awareness is far more respectable admirable than blustering bullshit overconfidence and over inflated ego.

"If your cup is full then there is no more room. There is no more room for anything new to get in for any new idea, for any new feeling or thought and so you just have to continue to empty that cup. Continue to pour out and then you have the space for something new to come in and it does require awareness, it does require a desire to be present and to want to figure these sorts of things out.”

  • Bruce Lee
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