Locked Out of Apple Account Due to Gift Card
Paris Buttfield-Addison (Hacker News, John Gruber):
My Apple ID, which I have held for around 25 years (it was originally a username, before they had to be email addresses; it’s from the iTools era), has been permanently disabled. This isn’t just an email address; it is my core digital identity. It holds terabytes of family photos, my entire message history, and is the key to syncing my work across the ecosystem.
[…]
The only recent activity on my account was a recent attempt to redeem a $500 Apple Gift Card to pay for my 6TB iCloud+ storage plan. The code failed. The vendor suggested that the card number was likely compromised and agreed to reissue it.
[…]
I effectively have over $30,000 worth of previously-active “bricked" hardware. My iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Macs cannot sync, update, or function properly. I have lost access to thousands of dollars in purchased software and media.
[…]
Apple representatives claim that only the “Media and Services” side of my account is blocked, but now my devices have signed me out of iMessage (and I can’t sign back in), and I can’t even sign out of the blocked iCloud account because… it’s barred from the sign-out API, as far as I can tell.
Apple support was no help. We’ve been hearing stories like this for years, where someone who did nothing wrong loses access to their account and all their purchases and data. There still seems to be no solution other than running to the press after the fact. There’s no way to know that a gift card purchased through normal channels is bad. Apple won’t tell you what the actual problem was or provide any path to reinstatement. They just recommend creating a new account, which isn’t a real solution. You would still lose access to your data and purchases. As a developer, your apps would still belong to the old account, as would the purchases and data of anyone who used them. Resubmitting the apps through a new developer account would be a violation of Apple’s guidelines and potentially lead to a lifetime ban.
At the individual level, it seems like there are only a few things we can do to reduce our risk. First, use separate Apple IDs for personal and developer stuff. Second, it’s not worth trying to get a deal on a discounted gift card. If someone gives you a gift card, maybe save it for a hardware purchase so that you can use it without linking it to your account.
It shouldn’t matter—no one should have to go through this—but:
I am not a casual user. I have literally written the book on Apple development (taking over the Learning Cocoa with Objective-C series, which Apple themselves used to write, for O’Reilly Media, and then 20+ books following that). I help run the longest-running Apple developer event not run by Apple themselves, /dev/world. I have effectively been an evangelist for this company’s technology for my entire professional life. We had an app on the App Store on Day 1 in every sense of the world.
I went to Uni with this person (though I doubt they remember me.) They have a very high reputation. If anyone should be able to resolve this, it’s them — that they can’t, and they have to go public, is absolutely terrifying and should make Apple execs pay attention.
I mean that. Exec level. This story and that this specific person cannot get it fixed indicates absolute failure.
I have escalated this through my many friends in WWDR and SRE at Apple, with no success.
Update (2025-12-13): Paris Buttfield-Addison:
I do have backups of most data, including photos, but there are things you can’t backup like shared actively edited iWork documents, and things like that.
Previously:
- Unable to Join Apple Developer Program
- Locked Out of Apple Developer Accounts
- Another User Locked Out of Apple Account
- Multiple Apple ID Accounts
- Developer Account In Limbo Due to Popularity
- Apple Accounts “Permanently” Blocked
- Apple Account Locked Due to Failed Trade-in
- Student’s Developer Account Mistakenly Terminated
- Locked Out of an Apple Account
9 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
"First, use separate Apple IDs for personal and developer stuff. Second, it’s not worth trying to get a deal on a discounted gift card."
Third, do not rely on any service for your data storage. Always have a local copy of everything you value.
Fourth, always create dedicated accounts on all services. Never use "Log in with Google" or anything similar.
Fifth, own a domain name registered at a local (to you) domain registrar to receive email, so you can forward it to a new provider if you lose access to your email provider.
Sixth, if the above fails, just start a new life under a new name in a new country.
"First, use separate Apple IDs for personal and developer stuff."
Let's say, if someone doesn't follow this first rule of Apple-Club yet, what would be the best way to entangle personal and developer stuff?
@Florian I don’t think there’s a good way to disentangle. Because of transfer restrictions, I guess you’d have to keep the old account as the developer one and try to transfer personal stuff to a new account. Possibly the best practice is to start out with separate legal entities and accounts for each app, although that can also cause other problems, because then you can just transfer the legal entity if you sell the app.
In the 1990s when I was in DTS, and people were transitioning from AppleLink IDs to eWorld IDs, we could fix this within DTS.
But that’s thirty years ago. Today, I’m pretty sure you’re screwed if you can’t get someone C-level to care about your case, and why should they care? They’re minting money.
@Florian, TL;DR? Don't!
I'm unsure what country you live, but my country collects taxes on developer income. Consider "developer stuff" to be a business. While I did development (not Apple) for the majority of my career, I *never* considered entangling personal stuff with work stuff. When I retired in 2016 I already had my "hobby" (it makes pocket change) Apple ID totally separate from my personal Apple ID.
Yes, it complicates things. Yes, if you choose to use iCloud (I don't) it adds even more complications (think backups, both on-site and off-site) that most Apple users wouldn't do. And YES, Apple should CHANGE certain things, a this is a prime example of what.
To repeat, DO NOT entangle personal with developer stuff! And if that ship sailed and you have apps available through a personal Apple ID, look into transferring it to a new account before your next submission. I don't know the process, but I know that many apps have been sold to a different entity, creating the need to submit updates from a different Apple ID eventually.
@Michael Thanks for the pointers. It really does feel like dark magic that can cause new problems, just by trying to do the right thing. Really not sure on how to proceed yet.
@Dave Thank you, and I'm sorry — I meant "disentangle" in my OP. Looks like I was very focused on the entanglement.
The whole topic is very scary: just imagine if Paris were also a developer under the locked out Apple account 🤯
And... @Michael Tsai commented as I was typing my comment! Not sure about the link provided - it's from 2020 and while valid, it seems to be about a specific scenario using iCloud entitlements. But yeah, it's a mess.
One thought, and it may work, but only with some unnecessary work and a killer price.. If you have 3 apps in the App Store, remove them, rename them, change you App Store pages, and submit user your new Apple ID. I'm sure this may break some other Apple rule, but at least you have full control of directing users to the correct webpage.
Legislators are coming after Apple for all kinds of things, but this seems to be a complete blind spot that really needs to be addressed.
Identity has become everything. Apple shouldn’t be able to act anymore like all that’s at risk is a few iTunes songs. This is almost on par with identity theft in terms of the damage done and the difficulty to recover. At least with identity theft there are people who understand what you are talking about and who can potentially help you.
@Florian Paris is also a developer under that account.
@Dave But what happens to all the people who already purchased the apps if you do that?
@Bart Yeah, I don’t even really see why Apple wants to take such drastic action. They already know if the gift card has been used or not, so what does it cost them to just reject one that’s already spent? What is the conceivable benefit of killing the victim’s account?
