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.
I’m quite prone to this. Even as I’m consciously resisting slipping into this fallacy, I can still feel that there is a pernicious and persistent kernel at my core that clings to the idea of a just world. For me, it is less about a moral kind of justice, more like a deep belief in some sense of underlying, teleological order to the world.
I know that this is silly, in every way that it is possible to know a thing. And yet, I can’t seem to sway that deep down part of me that devoutly believes that actually, everything makes sense.
This is actually a known psychological phenomenon called the Just World Fallacy
I’m quite prone to this. Even as I’m consciously resisting slipping into this fallacy, I can still feel that there is a pernicious and persistent kernel at my core that clings to the idea of a just world. For me, it is less about a moral kind of justice, more like a deep belief in some sense of underlying, teleological order to the world.
I know that this is silly, in every way that it is possible to know a thing. And yet, I can’t seem to sway that deep down part of me that devoutly believes that actually, everything makes sense.