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.
It is worth highlighting that this sort of thing is not just an Apple issue. It happens frequently to peoples Google accounts, and probably Microsoft accounts, as well.
The only sane advice to anyone is always have another copy of the data. Preferably locally, but in another cloud provider at least.
If it only exists in one place you might as well be using the recycling bin to store you important data.
It is worth highlighting that this sort of thing is not just an Apple issue. It happens frequently to peoples Google accounts, and probably Microsoft accounts, as well.
The only sane advice to anyone is always have another copy of the data. Preferably locally, but in another cloud provider at least.
If it only exists in one place you might as well be using the recycling bin to store you important data.
@flop_leash_973 @brbposting Best advice you can give. I’ve got stuff in iCloud, OneDrive and locally. Never keep your data in just one place.