Man claims Apple Customer Support cannot override charge with In-app purchase

[fathergll]

Saw a story about what a man claims is terrible Apple Customer Service when you try to dispute charges with Apple pay.

TLDR: Guy claims he ordered an audiobook and got charged for both the audiobook and ebook version. He called Apple Support and according to him the supervisor said it looked wrong but they can't override it because of some 'AI process'. They told him he had to dispute the charge with his bank which got him the money back, but then his debit card got booted from Apple pay because if you dispute a charge that account becomes blacklisted.

 

[dk001]

Ran into this video while browsing YT sipping my morning coffee. It struck a stray thought as I had something similar with my car insurance (was seeing one thing on my app and another in the browser regarding renewals). That one turned out okay after a lengthy process getting to a human, without a heavy accent.

After watching this, I suspect the incidences of things like this occurring is only going to climb until we see some type of regulation.

 

[mentaluproar]

Has anyone seen this? Apple screwed up and double charged a user, admits the problem exists, refuses to fix it because they can’t overrule the AI, suggests he disputes the charge with his bank. When the user wins the dispute Apple blacklists their account from Apple Pay.

So the rule is Apple is allowed to do whatever they want, if you call them out they retaliate.

 

[MacInTO]

I saw this recently and was/wasn't surprised that this happened. The automation (AI) as well as the size and bureaucracy of Apple contributes the the ******tification of the experience. It was for such a small amount as well. If the human staff cannot refund or credit a few dollars, there is a real issue. When I see stuff like this I get turned off and go elsewhere. Ive been a life long Apple user (40+ years), but I've recently switched back to Android for my phone. My computers are still Apple, but they are 10+ years old and run on Mojave so I'm not affected by anything new they release. I'm basically done with buying anything new from Apple. Apple is the new Microsoft or IBM.

 

[mentaluproar]

I saw this recently and was/wasn't surprised that this happened. The automation (AI) as well as the size and bureaucracy of Apple contributes the the ******tification of the experience. It was for such a small amount as well. If the human staff cannot refund or credit a few dollars, there is a real issue. When I see stuff like this I get turned off and go elsewhere. Ive been a life long Apple user (40+ years), but I've recently switched back to Android for my phone. My computers are still Apple, but they are 10+ years old and run on Mojave so I'm not affected by anything new they release. I'm basically done with buying anything new from Apple. Apple is the new Microsoft or IBM.

I’ve been slowly migrating to Linux for everything. This is a clear indication of serving shareholders, ignoring customers. It’s a foreseeable risk and they just don’t care.

I just can’t figure out what to do about replacing Apple Pay. I want the tap to pay on my watch but Apple and Android are getting worse and there’s no FOSS solution for this.

 

[I7guy]

How many hundreds of millions of transactions a day? And a story on YouTube regarding some poor customer service? I don’t know. I would t be quick to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[Nermal]

This reminds me of when I bought an iPod Touch from Apple's NZ online store (which is run out of Australia) in 2008. It was, I think, NZ$750. Apple charged me NZ$750 and AU$750.

Fortunately there was no "AI process" back then, and Apple refunded the erroneous charge and gave me a $100 gift voucher.

 

[bzgnyc2]

How many hundreds of millions of transactions a day? And a story on YouTube regarding some poor customer service? I don’t know. I would t be quick to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Things like this are always statistical until they happen to you...

But I think the question is this now by design? If AI is now making the shots with no override then this won't be just a 1 in a million error.

The other question I have is does disputing a charge made using Apple Pay with the card issuer always (e.g. automatically, etc) cause the card to be blocked from Apple Pay? That would essentially nullify the consumer protections built into cards.

 

[iStorm]

I'm always skeptical when I see stories like this. I'm not saying the events didn't happen the way he said, but how do we know it wasn't user error? Did he buy the book, realize it wasn't the audiobook, then buy the audiobook and couldn't get a refund on the regular book? Apple does say all sales are final, but exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Did he wait too long to request a refund? He said it happened twice, but never showed the other instance. If it is truly a glitch, why aren't we hearing complaints from other people?

 

[EugW]

How many hundreds of millions of transactions a day? And a story on YouTube regarding some poor customer service? I don’t know. I would t be quick to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Things like this are always statistical until they happen to you...

Exactly. Automation has its problems. Even if it doesn’t affect 99.9% of people, it will still affect that 0.1%, which can be very problematic for individuals in that 0.1%.

For example, recently there was a case here in Canada of a woman who got a letter from the government saying that she had been overpaid benefits, and that letter demanded repayment for the overpaid amount. Furthermore, the letter threatened that if that overpaid amount wasn’t paid back soon, they would hold back 1/4 of her other benefits until the matter was resolved. It turns out she had been overpaid all of 20¢. Even worse, it was not even an ongoing 20¢ overpayment, but a 1¢ overpayment for a little over a year and a half. She tried contacting the government but she couldn’t reach any human to get the issue resolved, so it totally stressed her out, all over 20¢.

BTW, a while back I owed exactly 2¢ on my line of credit. It didn’t accrue any interest since at say 0.5% per month (6% per year), it rounded down to 0¢. However, that 2¢ debt was always there on my account. Finally I made a trek to the bank and handed the teller a nickel and asked her to clear my debt. She was a little taken aback, but then smiled after seeing my account and cleared it. Then she handed me back my nickel. In Canada we don’t have pennies anymore, so everything gets rounded up/down to the nearest nickel. Since my change was 3¢, it was rounded back up to a nickel. The difference here though was that it was easy to reach a real person to get the stuff done.

 

[I7guy]

Things like this are always statistical until they happen to you...

But I think the question is this now by design? If AI is now making the shots with no override then this won't be just a 1 in a million error.

The other question I have is does disputing a charge made using Apple Pay with the card issuer always (e.g. automatically, etc) cause the card to be blocked from Apple Pay? That would essentially nullify the consumer protections built into cards.

Exactly. Automation has its problems. Even if it doesn’t affect 99.9% of people, it will still affect that 0.1%, which can be very problematic for individuals in that 0.1%.

For example, recently there was a case here in Canada of a woman who got a letter from the government saying that she had been overpaid benefits, and that letter demanded repayment for the overpaid amount. Furthermore, the letter threatened that if that overpaid amount wasn’t paid back soon, they would hold back 1/4 of her other benefits until the matter was resolved. It turns out she had been overpaid all of 20¢. Even worse, it was not even an ongoing 20¢ overpayment, but a 1¢ overpayment for a little over a year and a half. She tried contacting the government but she couldn’t reach any human to get the issue resolved, so it totally stressed her out, all over 20¢.

BTW, a while back I owed exactly 2¢ on my line of credit. It didn’t accrue any interest since at say 0.5% per month (6% per year), it rounded down to 0¢. However, that 2¢ debt was always there on my account. Finally I made a trek to the bank and handed the teller a nickel and asked her to clear my debt. She was a little taken aback, but then smiled after seeing my account and cleared it. Then she handed me back my nickel. In Canada we don’t have pennies anymore, so everything gets rounded up/down to the nearest nickel. Since my change was 3¢, it was rounded back up to a nickel. The difference here though was that it was easy to reach a real person to get the stuff done.

It’s not that there will never be these types of errors, it’s that these types of things are not the general norm. And it doesn’t mean when these issues don’t happen they aren’t thorny and a pain to solve.

Some vendors are easier and better to work with than others.

 

[dk001]

I'm always skeptical when I see stories like this. I'm not saying the events didn't happen the way he said, but how do we know it wasn't user error? Did he buy the book, realize it wasn't the audiobook, then buy the audiobook and couldn't get a refund on the regular book? Apple does say all sales are final, but exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Did he wait too long to request a refund? He said it happened twice, but never showed the other instance. If it is truly a glitch, why aren't we hearing complaints from other people?

Does it matter?
I have accidentally (or maybe it was the system) where I bought a book and found the audible bundled in including the additional cost. Usually Kindle.
Never had an issue “returning” these. For Play Books and Books, it has been a while and it was a person.

Now on the AI side, they are becoming very prevalent for financial institutions and are becoming a pain.

 

[01cowherd]

Exactly. Automation has its problems. Even if it doesn’t affect 99.9% of people, it will still affect that 0.1%, which can be very problematic for individuals in that 0.1%.

And, as many forum members like to extol, Apple's user base is gigantic. By Apple's numbers, there are 2.5 billion (2,500,000,000) active iPhones. Some people have multiple iPhones, so let's round down a lot and say the number of unique customers is 1 billion. Even 0.0001% affected customers (1 in a million) is still a thousand or more people. It's easy to write them off when you have a couple billion other customers.

The other question I have is does disputing a charge made using Apple Pay with the card issuer always (e.g. automatically, etc) cause the card to be blocked from Apple Pay? That would essentially nullify the consumer protections built into cards.

From similar chargeback questions over the years, it appears that chargebacks result in a permanent ban of the credit card number for any purchase through Apple and may also restrict your Apple account until you contact support to unlock it.

 

[Le_Chiffre]

Things like this are always statistical until they happen to you...

But I think the question is this now by design? If AI is now making the shots with no override then this won't be just a 1 in a million error.

The other question I have is does disputing a charge made using Apple Pay with the card issuer always (e.g. automatically, etc) cause the card to be blocked from Apple Pay? That would essentially nullify the consumer protections built into cards.

Apple just refunded me an in app subscription.
I call bs on this story.