Grandfathered iCloud Storage - Disaster!

platoaddict · Oct 1, 2014

I purchased (years ago) the 25 GB iCloud storage plan. As we all know, Apple changed the iCloud storage plans (presumably to accompany iCloud drive). Shortly after the iPhone 6 announcement, I received an email from iCloud telling me that my account would automatically be "upgraded" to 25 GB for $11.99/year. Under the new iCloud account options, the closest available is the 20 GB plan for 0.99/month.

My plan reset today. I woke up to an email telling me that my payment failed and that if I did not update my payment options, my account would be downgraded to the free 5 GB storage plan. Despite the credit card information being accurate (and updating it regardless), Apple downgraded my account. I have been on the phone with AppleCare for the last 1.5 hours and still am trying to resolve the issue. Oh, and I have a charge authorization against the credit card at issue from yesterday for the 11.99.

Another issue that came to light during all of this is the ability to edit your payment information for an iCloud account which is set up to use family sharing. When you attempt to track down your payment information, you're told that it's part of a family sharing account and to use the iTunes/App Store setting to change the payment information. But that uses a different AppleID than iCloud ...

Ultimately, I logged out of the AppleID I use for iTunes/App Store, logged into my iCloud account, reentered all of my payment settings, and then logged out and logged back into my typical AppleID. Seems a bit strange that you can't edit your iCloud settings directly, no?

screensaver400 · Oct 1, 2014

platoaddict said:
I purchased (years ago) the 25 GB iCloud storage plan. As we all know, Apple changed the iCloud storage plans (presumably to accompany iCloud drive). Shortly after the iPhone 6 announcement, I received an email from iCloud telling me that my account would automatically be "upgraded" to 25 GB for $11.99/year. Under the new iCloud account options, the closest available is the 20 GB plan for 0.99/month.

My plan reset today. I woke up to an email telling me that my payment failed and that if I did not update my payment options, my account would be downgraded to the free 5 GB storage plan. Despite the credit card information being accurate (and updating it regardless), Apple downgraded my account. I have been on the phone with AppleCare for the last 1.5 hours and still am trying to resolve the issue. Oh, and I have a charge authorization against the credit card at issue from yesterday for the 11.99.

Same issue here. Hopefully Apple is able to correct this.

Hammie · Oct 1, 2014

Mark me as another person who had this happen to me.

My storage shows 5GB, and I cannot confirm whether all my other files are still there. I was using about 18GB of the 25GB.

What number are you calling? I will not be able to call for another 3 hours from now due to other commitments.

skveezer · Oct 1, 2014

yup - add me to the disaster

I even tried finding any link or phone number on apple websites to contact same. NADA simply put my 25GB plan I have for quite a long time was wiped down to 5 gb thereby losing document data etc

Totally PISSED

betaboy78 · Oct 2, 2014

Same thing happened to me yesterday. After about four hours on the phone (because I kept getting disconnected from Apple) I was finally transferred to "corporate" customer service. He was able to confirm that this is happened to multiple people but said there's nothing he can do. Since the plan is no longer offered (25 GB) we are stuck just using either the 20 GB plan or the 200 GB plan. Ridiculous! I have a hard time believing that Apple can't give all of us who had a grandfather 25 GB plan what we had before. This is especially troubling because there was nothing wrong with my payment method, they admitted it was an error on their end.

Hammie · Oct 2, 2014

skveezer said:
I even tried finding any link or phone number on apple websites to contact same. NADA simply put my 25GB plan I have for quite a long time was wiped down to 5 gb thereby losing document data etc Totally PISSED

Nothing should be lost. When you sign up for a 20GB plan, everything will be there.

I was wrongly advised by the first Apple Care specialist that the free 5GB was added to the 20/200/etc plan and would give me a total of 25Gb for .99/mo.

After I upgraded with her on the phone, it showed only 20GB (just as I expected). She reviewed my account and verified that I was only at 20GB. She then transferred me to a senior specialist.

The senior specialist said that there was nothing that could be done, but checked with the iTunes commerce department to see if there is anything on their end that can be done. The iTunes group said they could not do anything with the iCloud storage accounts.

A case was opened up with Engineering to see if there is anyway to get the extra 5GB reinstated.

Every rep I spoke to was unaware that the initial free 5GB was taken away once you upgraded to a paid plan.

betaboy78 said:
Same thing happened to me yesterday. After about four hours on the phone (because I kept getting disconnected from Apple) I was finally transferred to "corporate" customer service. He was able to confirm that this is happened to multiple people but said there's nothing he can do. Since the plan is no longer offered (25 GB) we are stuck just using either the 20 GB plan or the 200 GB plan. Ridiculous! I have a hard time believing that Apple can't give all of us who had a grandfather 25 GB plan what we had before. This is especially troubling because there was nothing wrong with my payment method, they admitted it was an error on their end.

I agree that this is quite ridiculous. I'll let you know if I find a work around. They are supposed to call me back with an answer by mid-next week.

In the mean time, I "upgraded" to the 20GB plan. I had a couple of old backups that I deleted and am now down to 12GB of usage.

screensaver400 · Oct 2, 2014

Hammie said:
I was wrongly advised by the first Apple Care specialist that the free 5GB was added to the 20/200/etc plan and would give me a total of 25Gb for .99/mo.

I was told this as well. They opened up a ticket for me, too. We'll see what happens.

platoaddict · Oct 2, 2014

So a quick update to my drama from yesterday. The engineering team specifically asked that my ticket be assigned to them. In the meantime, I - too - have "upgraded" to the 20 GB plan. I was told that I should hear back in a few days what they found out and what they can do.

skveezer · Oct 2, 2014

Hammie said:
Nothing should be lost. When you sign up for a 20GB plan, everything will be there....

Wrong - They shut everything down from my original 25GB to 5gb free BEFORE I was aware - all at about 2AM in the morning. By the time I tried to contact Apple and when I finally sucked it up, I ended up with a NEW 20GB (sans 5gb) and the resultant loss of stored data.

Also, if you think about it, the logic (to me anyway) Apple gives you 5 GB free yet when you upgrade to 20 GB what happened to the "5gb" Free? In essence, my math says I'm actually paying for 20GB and nothing free. (Interesting that MS OneDrive gives me 25GB free) oh well...

hypoluxo · Oct 2, 2014

If you like your iCloud (healthcare) plan you can keep your iCloud (healthcare) plan!!!

Same thing happened here. I received an email at 8 AM yesterday. I confirmed that the payment details were correct by 830 AM. At 1040 AM I received an email stating that they could not process payment and that my iCloud plan was cancelled. I immediately called Apple, was on hold for 59 minutes only to be told, tough luck, there was nothing they could do. They would not reinstate the 25 GB plan for me.

My guy did say, though, that there had been numerous complaints of this nature. In spite of the "numerous" complaints, there were not prepared to make good on their screw-up.

I've had better customer service from my cable company.

Hammie · Oct 2, 2014

skveezer said:
Wrong - They shut everything down from my original 25GB to 5gb free BEFORE I was aware - all at about 2AM in the morning. By the time I tried to contact Apple and when I finally sucked it up, I ended up with a NEW 20GB (sans 5gb) and the resultant loss of stored data.

Also, if you think about it, the logic (to me anyway) Apple gives you 5 GB free yet when you upgrade to 20 GB what happened to the "5gb" Free? In essence, my math says I'm actually paying for 20GB and nothing free. (Interesting that MS OneDrive gives me 25GB free) oh well...

I'm sorry to hear that you lost everything. All of my data was there after I "upgraded" to the 20GB plan.

If we get 5GB free, then the 20GB plan is really $.99/mo for 15GB plus the 5GB free. Which is not really competitive at all with other providers out there.

r0k · Oct 2, 2014

Mine went through on 10/1 without incident. Of course I had updated my credit card info because I recently had to cancel the normal cc I use due to suspected fraud. So I went through the ritual of logging in to all the various itunes ID's I own and updating the cc info and making sure it was right. What a pain. I'm alarmed to hear it gets more complicated with family sharing. Perhaps I won't bother turning that on.

platoaddict · Oct 3, 2014

Another update - apparently, Apple is admitting it messed this one up. The downside? Apple cannot restore the 25 GB plan to those that lost it. The upside? Apple is giving people who had this issue a free 200 GB plan for one year.

reese2147 · Oct 4, 2014

skveezer said:
Also, if you think about it, the logic (to me anyway) Apple gives you 5 GB free yet when you upgrade to 20 GB what happened to the "5gb" Free? In essence, my math says I'm actually paying for 20GB and nothing free. (Interesting that MS OneDrive gives me 25GB free) oh well...

This is an excellent point... in reality, iCloud pricing is paying for 195GB @ 3.99/month and 495GB @ 9.99/month. I have **never** understood Apple's iCloud pricing. They charge MORE per GB between a lower and higher tier plan.

200GB @ 3.99/month = $0.01995 per GB
500GB @ 9.99/month = $0.01998 per GB

Unless iCloud drive is fully functional and knocks my socks off with Yosemite's release, I'll be sticking to OneDrive.

r0k · Oct 4, 2014

I have 25 gb. Maybe it's because I had .mac and then mobile me but I pay for the 20gb upgrade and get 25gb. I looked at the tiers after reading your post and I might go to 200gb if iCloud Drive works well for me when Yosemite comes out.

skveezer · Oct 4, 2014

platoaddict said:
Another update - apparently, Apple is admitting it messed this one up. The downside? Apple cannot restore the 25 GB plan to those that lost it. The upside? Apple is giving people who had this issue a free 200 GB plan for one year.

Mmmm - not feeling this one...

and as for losing my data, I got the Apple email saying they were canceling the 25G account and did so before I could actually react. Hence, they downgraded me to 5 GB and wiped out any data above that that I had when using the 25GB Oh well, lesson learned. (I've also had the account since MobileMe was "in")

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Grandfathered iCloud Storage - Disaster!

platoaddict

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Hammie

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platoaddict

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Hammie

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