The VAR Guy

Over the holiday vacation I had the unpleasant experience of someone hacking into my Apple iTunes account to make a fraudulent purchase. The result? A weeklong experience with iTunes e-mail support, which for all intents and purposes, is ineffective. Here’s my story.

The day after Christmas, I noticed that $10 worth of my newly added iTunes credit had mysteriously disappeared. The culprit? Some unscrupulous developer with an application called “History Calculator” — a $10 application that essentially did nothing but act as a calculator. All the iTunes Store reviews attested to this fact, since they were all fellow victims.

I changed my password, changed my purchase information to PayPal and contacted iTunes support through the iTunes “Report A Problem” service inside of the iTunes application. I wrote that I hadn’t made this purchase, and I’d like a refund. Twenty-four hours later, I received a (seemingly) automated reply from someone named “Siva,” that my account had been disabled and I should change my password (which I already had done) and reach out to my credit card provider or PayPal to get a refund. Clearly, nobody had looked into my account enough to see that iTunes credit was stolen and no credit card had been billed. The immediate response was to pass the buck off to someone else. I was annoyed.

I responded via e-mail explaining that all I needed was a refund on iTunes credit, and this was something Apple would have to do, not my credit card company. I again asked for a refund. I promptly received the reply, “I understand that your account has been disabled and you would like it enabled.” Uh, what?

I logged into iTunes and discovered my fraudulent transaction had been set up for a refund. Yay. I also had no problem downloading my weekly podcasts, so I assumed there was miscommunication and my iTunes account wasn’t disabled. I wrote back to iTunes support and told them the refund was all I needed, and it was pending now. I asked how long it would take.

I received the reply that in three to five business days I would see the credit back. Indeed, my credit returned in full, just three days later. Then, when I went to make a purchase, it was promptly denied because my iTunes account was — in fact — disabled. I wrote a new e-mail to iTunes support explaining — in detail — what had happened and I thanked them for the prompt refund. I asked to have my account enabled, since there were no longer security issues.

I received an automated reply, which was identical to the previous e-mail with the information regarding my deactivated account. It included the information I needed to send to Apple to enable the account, and yet another identical recommendation to change my password. I changed my password and sent Apple the information and waited for a reply. iTunes Support replied inside a day and told me that my account was now enabled, but I needed to change my password (again).

I did as told, and after changing my password, my account was still disabled. I wrote again, complaining of the issue. The reply? The exact same identical automated message I had first received regarding the personal information Apple would need to enable the account. I bit, again, this time offering some slightly new information since I had changed some security information and settings in iTunes. A prompt reply was again offered, saying that the account had been enabled, and I should change my password, for a third time. So I did. And it didn’t work. So I wrote another e-mail to let them know it hadn’t worked.

That’s when “Siva” sent me the exact same automated e-mail I had already gotten three times already. How do I know? Gmail shows duplicated text from e-mail threads in purple. This entire e-mail was purple. I was furious that a real person hadn’t even bothered reading my account, looking into it or at the very least, realizing that this was the same person with the same problem and the textbook answer wasn’t the solution.

I picked up the phone and called Apple Care, punched in some information saying that I was having a problem with my MacBook Air and iTunes, and as soon as I had a real person, I explained my entire situation before he had a chance to do anything else. The customer rep took down my Apple ID and then subsequently had to reach out — not by phone — via an internal chat system, to talk to someone higher up who could address this situation, which now had been going on for a week. I waited on the phone, listened to my Apple Support rep type to some magical Apple wizard, and eventually, was informed my iTunes account was now enabled, but … I had to change my password.

I kept my new friend on the line for my password change to ensure it would work. And it finally did. I profusely thanked the gentleman and hung up the phone.

So here’s my plea: Apple, considering all the love I’ve had with employees in retail stores and phone support in the past, please, considering what a cash cow iTunes is, offer your loyal customers some immediate phone-based support to fix these problems. This was really an unacceptable amount of time for such a simple problem. And more importantly, drop the automated e-mails, because nothing is more infuriating than not being listened to.

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