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Apple Charges Customer 122 Times for Lion

Chupa Chupa said:
I was bit by an iTunes/Paypal scam last year in which a scammer was able to charge over $1000 from my bank acct and another $1000 from my CC registered on Paypal. PP did reverse the charges but learned a lesson: don't attach any PP or CC acct to your iTunes acct. It's NOT secure no matter what Apple says.

Now I buy iTunes cards and keep a small amount of credits on iTunes for impromptu .99 app purchases. If I want to buy a more expensive item like Lion I'll load up more credits just before the purchase. Someone a PITA but less so than dealing with fraudulent or erroneous charges.
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The link below describes how to open an iTunes account without a credit or debit card. Basically, buy a free app from the app store:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

How us this news? A developer, using a newly introduced feature of beta software encounters a glitch.
 
I would call the cops on Paypal and/or Apple unless they immediately refunded my money. It was an accident until they failed to fix the problem. Then it becomes theft.
 
You should never give paypal access to your primary checking account. You should also not keep that much money in an account paypal has access to unless you plan on spending it with paypal soon.

Paypal is not a bank, they should not be trusted with access to fund you might need.
 
Spoony said:
NutJob answered some of this but it also comes down to Prestige and when I say Prestige I mean AMEX has awesome customer service, they give a crap about you (as much as a lender can I guess), they have great fraud controls and try and work with you.
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I don't have much experience with AMEX (I have it, but don't use it), but I've had total satisfaction with both Discover and Visa when I've needed to dispute a transaction. The cases were resolved quickly and smoothly.
 
Spoony said:
Lesson.

Always link every single one of your bills to an American Express Card with Reward points.

Cell phone bill, cable bill, iTunes, utilities all go to the Amex. You get hotel points and only need to pay one bill instead of multiple.

also Amex has awesome fraud protection and support and they will dispute charges on your behalf and investigate.
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rickdollar said:
Credit cards are not so great if you carry a balance but if you pay them in full every month they're fantastic. Among many other benefits, you never need to carry a wad of cash with you (I never have more than $40 in my wallet and that's never caused a problem), they can be used anywhere, you can dispute charges, you're not liable for charges you did not make if you notify the issuing company of a loss of your card. None of this costs a penny. I've used a credit card almost exclusively for the last 20 years. Can't beat em 99% of the time.
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As long as it's not Amex or Discover :p Those points come with a cost, and the merchants don't like to pay it.
 
MrCrowbar said:
If losing $3658.78 is keeping you from paying your mortgage rate, then you've got more serious problems. If you can't survive without income for 6 months, you're probably living above your means. I mean, you could get sick, crash your car, need to pay for a relative's funeral...

I recommend having 2 bank accounts, one for paying bills that you fill up regularly and another one for safekeeping, stock trading, etc. I personally wouldn't recommend a savings account though in this current economic situation. If you're in the Euro-Zone or North America, get yourself some gold and silver to maintain your wealth during the following years.
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Welcome to reality, boy. Congrats you got it better, but this is how most of us live every day! ;)
 
sclawis300 said:
Amex gave me a card with a $15k limit on it and I had ZERO income. Not sure there screening process is all that better than any of the other cards out there. Not to mention it was 0% for 15 or 18 months and all I had to do was pay the minimum balance every month. Not sure how they are any different from any other card out there.
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They started getting into the more credit card realm over the past few years which is why you probably got a card. Def big money to be made with teh credit card model.
 
sclawis300 said:
you can't eat gold. So I don't really see the point. Why do people think you should hoard things that can't be consumed if the world economy is crashing? Oil, food, bullets I get...gold not so much. You will be taking your trunk load of gold to buy a loaf of bread if things get as bad as you think they will.
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Because people will trade things for gold, no different than diamonds. Gold/Silver/Diamonds/other precious medals have been traded for thousands of years. No you can't eat gold, but you can't eat oil either. Just because it doesn't give off heat, cook food, or kill something doesn't make it not a commodity. I can get alot of oil, food and bullets for a few ounces of gold. Not saying it's a good thing to invest in, and not saying it's not, but just because it isn't edible doesn't make it worthless. A trunk load of gold will get you plenty of raw materials to make bread if **** hits the fan bad enough.

nutjob said:
You can eat gold, it just comes out the other end undigested. But yeah as and investment it sucks right now. Buy at the top of the market! Lose all your money! People who think that gold is somehow more real than paper money have no idea, and probably think that governments beam thoughts into their head. Oh no! Must... resist... command... to... delete... that... sentence...
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You don't think that gold is more real than a piece of paper? Go to Greece and see what 5 ounces of gold will get you. Matter of fact, go anywhere in the world that has severe banking problems and worthless notes and see what 1 ounce of pure gold will get you. Gold IS worth more than any government issued reserve note. You think the Romans paid for chariots in paper money? It's been around for thousands of years as a currency. It sucks as an investment right now because people are stupid and flocking to it without actually thinking anything through. It's better in the short term to keep perishables on hand rather than gold. I'm not saying people advocating investing in gold are morons, or aren't, but to say gold isn't worth more than a US Federal Reserve not (dollars) is foolish and shows a lack of world history. I'd love to have even 10 ounces of gold, much less a bullion. It's pretty to look at.
 
Rajani Isa said:
As long as it's not Amex or Discover :p Those points come with a cost, and the merchants don't like to pay it.
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I think my SPG AMEX is $100 bucks for the year.

I on average put $40K a year on it. That is around $700 worth of hotel stays for $100 bucks of cost. Also if i use the card at any Starwood hotel i think it's 2x the points or something.
 
Issues re-downloading Lion from the app store

I bought Lion last week when it came out. The other day I was bored and decided to do a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard and then renistall Lion. Everytime I would try to re-download Lion from the appstore it wold just say "waiting". I sent several emails to Apple with no response, this has been going on for about three days. Today it started dowloading but I am still getting "waiting" with other apps such as Boom. What the heck is going on here??
 
sclawis300 said:
you can't eat gold. So I don't really see the point. Why do people think you should hoard things that can't be consumed if the world economy is crashing? Oil, food, bullets I get...gold not so much. You will be taking your trunk load of gold to buy a loaf of bread if things get as bad as you think they will.
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He said the guy should be able to cover 6 months of expenses, not hoard his gold. It is a reasonable step any financial planner would recommend.

vartanarsen said:
mmmmm, i think Apple need not rely on any such "interest gig" to make money. Have you heard of the iPhone?, iPad?, iPod?, and MacBook Pro?, and MacBook Air?
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Apple no, Paypal? it is th only way to explain a lot of their policies.
swansonma said:
I would expect this kind of cheating from PayPal but not of Apple. Even if PayPal is the one who has the money, Apple should be the bigger and better company and refund it to him directly. They have more ability to fight with PayPal than he does and they can spare a few thousand dollars easily.

As for all of you people who seem to think the average person has a $3,000 money cushion--what planet are you living on!? You must make a 6-figure salary or something! I make $62,000 a year but because I live in one of the most expensive metro areas on the east coast (second only to NYC probably) I very nearly live paycheck to paycheck. If I went even without one, I would suffer. Building up a $3,000 nest egg would takie me years! The only place I even have that kind of money is in my 401(k) account. I think some people need to get a reality check.

It seems to me like Apple has a glitch in their systems and I think they need to figure it out--there shouldn't be any excuse for that kind of error.
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Assuming you save 10% of your net income and spend the rest, you should have (roughly) a $12000 to $24000 emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of expenses . You spend about 4,300 a month on expenses out of your 62k. Since the economy is a bit unstable, how do you plan to live if your employer goes under. No one is too big to fail. It really is not an unreasonable.

If you are one paycheck from missing your mortgage, you have far exceeded your means.

In other news..Apple only received 1 transaction, how can refund the money?? Should they believe everyone that calls them and asks for money?

Fast Shadow said:
I would call the cops on Paypal and/or Apple unless they immediately refunded my money. It was an accident until they failed to fix the problem. Then it becomes theft.
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Call the cops on paypal. They need it anyway.
 
HKZ/MST3K said:
Because people will trade things for gold, no different than diamonds. Gold/Silver/Diamonds/other precious medals have been traded for thousands of years. No you can't eat gold, but you can't eat oil either. Just because it doesn't give off heat, cook food, or kill something doesn't make it not a commodity. I can get alot of oil, food and bullets for a few ounces of gold. Not saying it's a good thing to invest in, and not saying it's not, but just because it isn't edible doesn't make it worthless. A trunk load of gold will get you plenty of raw materials to make bread if **** hits the fan bad enough.



You don't think that gold is more real than a piece of paper? Go to Greece and see what 5 ounces of gold will get you. Matter of fact, go anywhere in the world that has severe banking problems and worthless notes and see what 1 ounce of pure gold will get you. Gold IS worth more than any government issued reserve note. You think the Romans paid for chariots in paper money? It's been around for thousands of years as a currency. It sucks as an investment right now because people are stupid and flocking to it without actually thinking anything through. It's better in the short term to keep perishables on hand rather than gold. I'm not saying people advocating investing in gold are morons, or aren't, but to say gold isn't worth more than a US Federal Reserve not (dollars) is foolish and shows a lack of world history. I'd love to have even 10 ounces of gold, much less a bullion. It's pretty to look at.
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I think you missed the point. It may get you stuff now. But if the world economy crashes who is going to give a crap about gold or diamonds or paper money? You take your gold to someone for food and see what they say, they will tell you no, and when you complain they will shoot you with their bullets and take all your gold and use it to hold up their table for a bread stand.
 
afs_nj said:
How us this news? A developer, using a newly introduced feature of beta software encounters a glitch.
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You are right, it is not really worth the mention as I think many here have had their bad experiences with orderings online.

But a payment system not being able to track if the payment has been done for 121 times is not a glitch. It's a serious malfunction.
 
wovel said:
He said the guy should be able to cover 6 months of expenses, not hoard his gold. It is a reasonable step any financial planner would recommend.
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"get yourself some gold and silver to maintain your wealth during the following years."
 
Apple charged my credit card 7x accidentally for the laptop I ordered.

Lesson learned, don't use bank account or debit card, use CREDIT CARD. It's the only way you're 100% against hardship as a result of others' errors.
 
Most banks protect against this type of errors, at least mine does. I don't see why you can't dispute the charges as unauthorized directly with his bank.
 
I had done some testing and wanted to reload Lion Server. Each time I get prompted to buy it again. On the same computer and apple account I purchased and installed it on last week...Well that sucks. Not suprised though.

Paypal and the banks have changed. It used to be you could go straight to the bank and they would stop it. Not anymore, I get sent to Paypal and you can forget ever seeing your money again in many cases. I had sold a GPS to a guy, he got it and broke it. So Paypal gave him his money back and I got a useless GPS back. Gee thanks.
 
I've heard this tune before...

I've had a beef with PayPal for the last several months. I sold an iPhone to a guy in New Jersey and he wanted it shipped overseas, so he paid for the extra shipping and I shipped it where he wanted it.

Turns out, that's against the fine print of PayPal's Seller Protection program. They levied a negative balance in the amount I sold the iPhone for against my account, and claimed "it was out of their hands" only the guy's credit card company could sort it out. In the meantime PayPal was nice enough to spam my inbox with messages telling me to "address" my negative balance "to avoid further collections action."

Well guess what? The credit card company finally realized that ******* was defrauding them, and they reversed their decision. I got my balance refunded back to zero, and promptly closed my account with a big ol' "GO ***** YOURSELF!!"

But at least my story has a happy ending: No harm, no foul. I learned my lesson not to trust internet companies with money.

Right now I'm sure this guy's being told by Apple that PayPal is the problem, and PayPal is saying "well there's nothing we can do about it." Time for him to join one of the many class-action suits against PayPal. Funny, for a company with several thousand employees they sure are ******** helpless...

:rolleyes:
 
MrCrowbar said:
If losing $3658.78 is keeping you from paying your mortgage rate, then you've got more serious problems. If you can't survive without income for 6 months, you're probably living above your means. I mean, you could get sick, crash your car, need to pay for a relative's funeral...
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blond37 stands up and applauds!! bravo well said.. some here have said $4k is the bank is ok to buy lion for $30. i disagree!
 
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