If you miss an Apple Card payment, Apple disables all your Apple accounts

So, little embarrassed to admit this, but: I plumb forgot to set up autopay on my Apple Card when I first got it.<p>I set it up to pay a few subscriptions and promptly forgot about it.<p>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.<p>No, Apple <i>did not disable my account</i>.

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.<p>I consider it worrying that a claim wholly lacking evidence is getting so much attention.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23995750" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23995750</a>

I didn&#x27;t expect that tweet to get so much attention. I plan to write more about what exactly happened when my accounts are re-activated.<p>But to clear a couple of things up:<p>1. I&#x27;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.<p>2. The disabling of iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID accounts <i>is</i> 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.)

Important detail:<p>&gt; 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.”<p>It&#x27;s not hard to imagine a payment issue for iCloud causing iCloud to be locked or otherwise limited, and given that Apple&#x27;s online services tend to be buggy and unreliable it&#x27;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&#x27;ve already heard about this if it were consistent and&#x2F;or by design.<p>Of course even if it wasn&#x27;t intentional, it&#x27;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&#x27;s way too big to care when users fall through the cracks.

Years ago I had &quot;Fraud&quot; detected on my Apple ID. Because of this, Apple locked my account and disabled all of my paid applications. I&#x27;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.<p>I&#x27;m assuming someone hacked into my Apple ID, but not sure. I was never told.

I&#x27;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&#x27;s ecosystem, including most of the smart devices in my house. Getting locked out for any amount of time would be super frustrating.

Can&#x27;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.<p>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&#x2F;bricked.

Wowza, that&#x27;s a quick and efficient way to add another antitrust complaint to your list.

Wow, I hope this is a bug or similar. Wouldn&#x27;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?<p>I remember stories about having an issue with an account on a Google property and losing all your access to all your Google accounts.<p>It&#x27;s a prime reason to buy services from different companies.

Posts like this often seem to be a waste of reading time. Even if the person is &#x27;a somebody&#x27;[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 &#x27;this is why I will not sign up for Apple Card&#x27; other comments &#x27;big corporations suck&#x27; and so on.<p>And no I don&#x27;t think it matters that Dustin has so many twitter followers in terms of believability.<p>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?<p>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).

Apple has done it before. So I am not surprised.<p>John Gruber ( and only him ) [1] suggest Epic was making things up when Apple would terminate Sign in with Apple on EPIC&#x27;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].<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daringfireball.net&#x2F;linked&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;29&#x2F;epic-games-unreliable-narrator" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daringfireball.net&#x2F;linked&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;29&#x2F;epic-games-unre...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TimSweeneyEpic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1311794937797783553?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TimSweeneyEpic&#x2F;status&#x2F;131179493779778355...</a>

And by extension all the services you sign in to using a (mandatory) sign in with Apple button.

After a decade deep into the Apple&#x2F;iOS ecosystem, I now make a unique disposable Apple ID for each and every mobile device, and eschew all paid apps. I don&#x27;t use iCloud at all. I don&#x27;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).<p>Making entirely unlinked&#x2F;unique Apple IDs is expensive because each one requires a working phone number to create.<p>This is really the only safe approach these days, given nonsense like this.<p>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&#x27;s contents, I have to do manual corded backups periodically because Apple doesn&#x27;t have their cryptographic shit together. :&#x2F;<p>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&#x27;ll probably cancel the card soon and delete that account. I&#x27;ve already replaced all of the movies I foolishly bought years ago on iTunes with torrented copies.

I don&#x27;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).<p>That never fails to completely throw financial institutions for a loop; they can&#x27;t conceptualize it.<p>Ironically it means that if I was to apply for a credit card it would be very difficult to get it.

All this speculation about whether or not it&#x27;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.<p>I canceled Twitter so that I wouldn&#x27;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 &quot;front page&quot; of Imgur is Twitter hot takes now, so I don&#x27;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.<p>#SocialMediaIsDestroyingSociety

This is one of the areas where consumers are losing their rights because of leverage by foundational companies.<p>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, &quot;too bad, then you can&#x27;t block at all, until you figure out how to separate the service blocks.&quot;

This tweet and claim don&#x27;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.<p>There&#x27;s simply no way that Apple is doing this; there is another explanation for this <i>single user</i> having this experience and I&#x27;m sure that will come out. This isn&#x27;t found <i>anywhere</i> in Apple&#x27;s terms of service.<p>I&#x27;ll give 10-1 odds on a $100 bet that this isn&#x27;t happening. Any takers?

I doubt very much the face-value interpretation here is accurate, but it&#x27;s also a good reminder about the eggs vs. baskets rule.<p>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&#x27;t, for example, handle my email; I prefer Dropbox to iCloud; etc.<p>It&#x27;s not just an Apple thing. Google chicanery could hit someone much harder, given how many more folks depend on Google for email. It&#x27;s a great time to review your own services and products, and figure out if you have any &quot;portfolio killer&quot; dependencies.

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?

How long until we can get Glass-Steagall for the bank of online identity?

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.

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&#x27;t be the first person to miss a payment.

I&#x27;m really curious who thought it was a good idea to use this line of credit in the first place.

Can user continue to use apple devices? MacBook, iPhone? Or are they also blocked?

This sounds like Chinas social credit score but on a lower threshold.

The modern version of debtors prison. Everything old is new again.

STOP. Think.<p>So many people running wild based on one twitter post.

Their platform their choice, right? If you don&#x27;t like it, don&#x27;t use it..<p>&#x2F;s if not obv

Wouldn’t use this product considering that it’s Goldman Sachs backend. What a horrible company and a damn shame Apple partnered with them.

You would too if Mohammed bin Salman was your investor!

Why do we even let Apple do our banking in the first place? I can&#x27;t really imagine a situation where I&#x27;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&#x27;m standing.