Want to start this off with:
Yes I'm alive and still floating around.
I know I'm super late but I finally was able to get my hands on the newest sport bands. I know new ones are about to drop but you guys will not believe the crap I had to deal with on my apple account. It all comes back to the BestBuy deal back in August or September. I had some money left over on my apple account after redeeming and spending most of the money. I noticed probably around the beginning of November once my phone was no longer backing up and I was getting notifications about it. Then I noticed that Apple dropped the new sport bands(kumquat, plum, and northern blue), tried to purchase them and noticed the underlying issue of my account balance being disabled. For whatever reason apples system decided to disable the remaining account balance of 89 bucks. Since apples system is set up the way it is and can't be changed it will spend the account balance before it charges anything to a credit or debit card. Because of this I could no longer back up my phone to my iCloud account since my subscription could no longer be renewed, purchase apps, make in-app purchases or buy things from the apple/iTunes store.
I stupidly tried calling apple care the day after thanksgiving and spent about 3 hours on the phone and got nowhere. I scheduled a call back for a week later and spent another 2 hours on the phone and still got nowhere. All of the advisors I spoke to just handed me off to other departments or senior advisors and no one had any answers. One advisor I had spoken to said that in his experiences anytime he has ever seen an account disabled that it was basically gone and there was no way to undo it(now I used to work for AppleCare and I know that was total bulls#it. Plus I could sign into my account just fine and make changes, I just couldn't spend the money.) I let it go because it was a busy time of year and decided to wait till after new year. The money wasn't going anywhere and I could always back up my phone to my computer. I even tried adding a dollar to see if it would nudge it and unlock it, NOPE, now I was out 90 bucks.
Well, I tried calling around the middle of January and it was the same song and dance of speaking to 5-6 advisors and spending close to 2-2.5 hours. It was just more of the sending me off to other departments and advisors, no one had any idea how to handle it. Finally I spoke with a senior advisor who looked into it and they found a form they could fill out to hopefully resolve it, and said it should take about a week.... Well a week later and it was still an issue so I called back only to go through the same rigmarole of speaking to 5 or so people being pushed around and coming to a senior advisor who did the same thing and filled the same form and to not call back until I hear from apple. I was so annoyed and upset, I just wanted to spend my money and I felt like this company valued at over 2 trillion dollars was holding me hostage over 90 bucks. I just felt defeated.
On March 10th I tried chatting with AppleCare this time, hoping to get a different response but no, it was the same, it wasn't their department or they don't handle that sort of thing, transferring me, ultimately I had to call.
The next day I spent another hour and a half and spoke with 4-5 more people telling my story YET AGAIN. Finally, I got to a Senior Advisor(Martha) and she said she was going to fill out some form but after looking at my past notes, said what she was going to do was different. I then proceeded to practically beg her to take ownership(something
EVERY Senior advisor was supposed to do without being asked, its supposed to be part of their procedures, and I spoke to probably 4 or 5 of them at that point.) of the call/issue since I've been dealing and calling with it for so long. She gave me a number to call back in a couple of days but said that apple would contact myself or Martha and she would contact me if she hears anything and to give it a couple of days for the review team to look into the issue.
I am legitimately going to name my kid Martha LMFAO, probably not but maybe, who knows. So the
NEXT MORNING, I'm sleeping at 1030 because my sleep schedule is ALL jacked up, I get a call. I recognize it from having to memorize it working for apple care and answer it. It was Martha, she had already heard back from the review team and they unlocked it. I then hoped on my computer and saw that I could finally after months be able to use my account balance and spend my money, bought my watch bands and 4 days later they're here!!!!
What a clusterf*ck!
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