> As written, the tweet contained no truth whatsoever.
"I forgot to update my Apple Card autopay info" True. "Re-enabling them takes 3-5+ business days." True. It's also true that Apple was holding his accounts hostage, just perhaps for a different reason than he believed. A lot of people seem to be ok with Apple holding his accounts hostage for the trade-in, but I for one am not ok with that.
> As pointed out in the prior thread, if this was happening as a matter of course, it would be unlikely that we were only just hearing about it now.
No, because first of all, it appears that Apple giving advance credit on trade-ins is a very new policy, and they previously waited until the trade-in was returned before giving the credit. Also, it seems there was a coincidence of several factors that don't often occur all together. 1) Failed autopay. 2) Failure to return trade-in. 3) Apple charges card for the trade-in value within just a few days after the failed autopay. 4) Charge is declined just a few days after failed autopay. The timing of all these were crucial, and would not all happen together commonly.
> If you spread misinformation, you are responsible for it. It’s clearly false to say it’s on everyone else for not being sufficiently skeptical.
I disagree with the term "misinformation" here. I'm still waiting to hear more details, but I certainly don't believe that Dustin intentionally said anything false. If something he said turns out to be false, then yes, he should correct it. However, my point is that nobody can force other people to listen to them a second time. You can correct yourself, but if people walk away after the initial story and never pay attention again, what can you do? "Never say anything false in the first place" would be a ridiculous suggestion, because nobody is omniscient, and the pressure to never say anything false just leads to censorship, which is highly undesirable.
> As I said - it’s on him to respond next. He seems to agree. We’re only talking this because you denied that.
No, I said that some of my questions were for Apple rather than Dustin, such as questions 3 and 4. Some questions he can answer, some questions he can't, as he doesn't know everything Apple does and never will.
> I assume you are speaking from ignorance here.
You said personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.
> My guess is that Apple has a lot more data on fraud prevention and customer retention at their scale then you do.
Heh. If Apple has data that they can treat customers like crap and still retain them, I certainly won't dispute that possibility. But a lot of people including myself would never want to do business with a company who thinks like that. I think it's shortsighted.
It does seem like "Tim Apple" operates more in accordance with this idea than "Steve Apple" did.
> Obviously not true. There are many things a customer can do that should cause a business to hold them in bad standing. Suspected theft would be one.
I wasn't talking about hypothetical customers, I was talking about Dustin. We know what he did, or didn't do: update the autopay information on the Apple Card, and send in the old MacBook Pro trade-in.
> There is no evidence at all that Dustin was left with no other recourse than to make an incorrect tweet to correct that.
I'm not even saying this is why Dustin tweeted. I can't read his mind. Maybe he was just pissed and venting, which is a very common thing on Twitter. After all, he was still locked out at the time of the tweet. I am saying that we see a lot of stories in the news media with people complaining about some action that Apple has taken, and the Apple defenders always come out of the woodwork to defend Apple and criticize the complainer as spreading "misinformation" about Apple, as though an individual suffering from Apple's inscrutable systems can be expected to be not only omniscient but also "sympathetic" to Apple. From my perspective, there can be no good justification whatsoever for Apple locking Dustin out, and thus the precise reason why it happened is no defense for it. We certainly want to know why it happened, but there's no excuse for the lockout IMO. So I'm not as bothered by the tweet as you seem to be.
> Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.
It's not a personal insult. Talking out of both sides of your mouth means saying contradictory things, and I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.
> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
> I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case. However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions.
2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage.
3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID account was suddenly unlocked and I got an email from someone saying they are going to try to call again tomorrow." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314385 So yes, hopefully we'll see a follow-up article with further details.
> It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
Agreed. My point in calling him a loyal customer is this if someone is likely to buy again, a company ought to treat them well and give them the benefit of the doubt rather than treating them like a criminal with immediate suspicion. Such treatment is very likely to decrease their odds of buying again. In other words, locking Dustin out of his accounts was bad business, regardless of what Dustin did.
> Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal
You apparently haven't read the various comments that I have.
> The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
In general, I'm very concerned about out of control "fraud detection algorithms", big tech companies locking people out of their accounts based on false positives, and the complete inability of users to contact those companies and get support and restore their accounts. This is where I'm coming from. It's becoming a very big problem, and I disagree strongly with the many people who have claimed that Dustin got what he "deserved". None of us deserve that, no matter what. We're at the mercy of these giant corporations, who appear to have no mercy.
Apple has created perverse incentives for people to go public with problems, because that actually gets results, unlike trying to contact Apple customer service privately. Look how fast Apple reacted after the article was published! If our only recourse is to "run to the press", that's what you can expect, and that's what we see.
> we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening
> the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now
zepto on the other hand:
> What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit
> he has created misinformation
> He provided incomplete and incorrect information
> made a second false claim
> the spread of false information here
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?
> which such people readily exploit
This is again an over the top description. Apple is doing just fine, raking in the money at record rate. Exploit? Exploit how? Dustin hasn't released a 0day security vulnerability here. Relax, Apple is going to be fine, you don't have to run with your musket to the front line to defend the company from certain death. If one Twitter user could actually do so much damage to Apple, if it were that easy to significantly hurt the company, then Apple would be out of business by now.
Even back in the 90s when Apple was "beleaguered", it wasn't internet commenters like you who saved Apple. It was Apple's own change in technology, business strategy, and leadership that saved Apple. You really don't have to go online and "protect" Apple. They are going to be ok. IMO the army of online defenders actually do more harm than good to Apple, because they make it appear like a religious cult. Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary. Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy. The worst scenario would be if individuals are afraid of ever speaking out about Apple or other corporations, for fear of the online mob, and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro" comments, I want to scream.
> Presumably hundreds of dollars. Well above what most companies would think of as theft.
This spin is so strange. Dustin is a longtime customer of Apple. Apple has a lot of information on him, and has done a lot of business with him. The idea that now he's suddenly going to become a criminal and steal money from a trade-in credit is absurd. Then what, high-tail it to Mexico and live a life of luxury with those hundreds of dollars?
> Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when
You mean in the tweet? Which has a limit of 280 characters? Because he did mention it in the article that he wrote after the tweet. It's silly to criticize a tweet for having incomplete information. Of course tweets have incomplete information, that's inevitable. Are you going to die on the hill of the tweet? The article expanded on the tweet.
zepto, I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something? Because buying Apple's latest MacBook Pro is a really strange way to bring down the company. Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience? We're all interested in exactly how the problem occurred, but I don't know, I just find it so strange when people feel they need to be Apple's self-appointed unpaid internet defender. Apple, as one of the world's most powerful corporations, can speak for itself if it so chooses, as it just did today.
You know, this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone. Shouldn't that be the bare minimum of customer service? Dustin certainly tried to do that. He only went public after multiple failures to resolve the problem first. Nothing you can say, and no mistakes that Dustin made, can change the fact that there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here.
> It’s like saying “have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
No, it's not. I described the timeline. I described how Dustin is a loyal Apple customer. Disabling his accounts over a delayed trade-in seems unnecessary and overly harsh.
> We have heard Apple’s response. It’s now time for Dustin’s response.
This goes back to my question 1. I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response. Especially since everything he says will be closely scrutinized by everyone. After all, Apple's response didn't come until 2 days after the article. Which I'm not complaining about, but we need to give these things time and not demand immediate responses to our hot takes.
> It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.
"Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list." So the calls don't just disappear forever, you still see them when you check your phone. You just don't hear a ring. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099
> Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.
Why would this set off red flags? A failed autopay actually seems a lot more innocent than flat out not trying to pay at all. Especially if the autopay had been working previously.
> the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook
This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.
How are 3, 4, and 5 questions for Dustin? Dustin is supposed to answer "why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?
> I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.
He did receive emails, which he described in his article. He also described phone calls with Apple that happened after his accounts were disabled, but obviously there was nothing before that. "The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call “hopefully” within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was." https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
> What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?
He purchased the new MacBook Pro in mid-January. Apple sent an "Action Required: Apple Card" email on February 15 regarding the trade-in. The account suspensions started around February 19, "About ten days ago" according to the March 1 article. That seems relatively quick to me. Apple certainly isn't hurting for cash, what's the rush?
> And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.
He only missed one payment, and Apple disabled his accounts shortly thereafter. Nobody is disputing those facts. So what's complete bullshit?
1. Did Apple talk to Dustin, or just to the media?
2. The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple, and indeed Dustin's article says he was frustrated playing phone tag with multiple departments at Apple, each of whom were unable to help him resolve the issue.
3. Why did Apple Card deny the charge? My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment. It seems that the missed payment in this case would have only been $9.99 for Dustin's iCloud upgrade (which was successful charged and up to date on payments, Dustin said). There are late fees and so forth, but they don't usually just render the card unusable.
4. Why did this happen so fast, and why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers? A customer who in this case had purchased multiple MacBook Pros, as well as iCloud, I'm sure among other things.
5. What ever happened to the trade-in kit that Apple was supposed to send to Dustin? There's no indication that it ever arrived.
> you still seem to overlook the fact that every other credit card on the market can also fail to post a transaction even if it authorizes, given sufficient time between the two events.
I don't even know what you're talking about. The transaction was posted. And then the transaction was billed to the card holder. The credit card bill didn't get paid, because the autopay had the wrong bank info. And that's when all the problems occurred. Again, this was all spelled out in the article.
There was no authorization failure. This was a simple case of a missed credit card payment.
What happened is that when Apple did not receive the trade-in, they added a charge to the card for the amount of the credit.
Anyway, the important point you're missing is that if Apple was dealing with a Chase card, Apple would not be out any money, because Chase pays Apple for any charges to the card. You're conceiving of a scenario where Apple doesn't get all of its money, and that's simply not the case with a third-party credit card.
Now if Apple and Goldman Sachs operated in the same manner, then Apple would also get all of the money it was owed, from Goldman Sachs, and then it would be up to Goldman Sachs to get payment from Dustin, which is no concern of Apple's. But apparently Apple and Goldman Sachs have a different kind of relationship with the Apple Card.
It appears that Apple is using its iCloud leverage to force the card holder to pay Goldman Sachs. Apple would have no such leverage to force the card holder to pay Chase, nor would Apple have any desire to use such leverage for Chase, because Apple is not "in bed", so to speak, with Chase.
> The article simply says their balance was not being paid. It’s possible that the trade in charge put them over their credit limit and that’s why it was declined. They never confirm otherwise.
It's all spelled out very clearly: "As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail. Then the Apple Store made a charge on the card."
His Apple Card was paid from his bank account. His bank account changed. He failed to update the bank info. Simple as that, no mystery whatsoever.
> Today I can put an App Store charge on my Chase card and do a chargeback making up some stupid reason that I never got my app in which the chargeback would be successful. It's not entirely out of the question that Apple would lock my account until that charge is resolved.
Yes, we're all aware of chargebacks, and nobody is disputing that you would owe Apple in that situation. Not sure how this really helps the argument.
The issue here is that the Apple Card seems to completely obliterate any separation between the merchant and the bank, which is obviously problematic. In fact there are 3 different things that you would expect to have some separation: the hardware (MacBook Pro), the services (iCloud), and the credit card. But now all 3 are the same, so buying the hardware with the credit card causes the service to be shut down.
Whereas if the hardware were Dell, the service was Google, and the credit card was Chase, then this problem wouldn't exist, and it would merely be an issue between Chase and the card holder, not affecting the Google services at all.
> there was an update after the sentence you pointed out saying “ Update: My accounts have been reactivated.”
I wasn't aware of that, but are you aware that very little time has passed? The post was written based on the the incomplete information available to the author. Do you expect the author to have rewritten everything based on the accounts suddenly having been restored after the post was published? Most likely Apple itself scrambled to reactive the accounts quickly when they saw this going viral. Maybe the author will have a follow-up later.