iCloud Why did Apple send me an email about problem with my CC while there seems to be no problem?

[Sodium Chloride]

I got an email from do_not_reply@itunes.com that seems to be legit. I checked the header and it said do_not_reply@itunes.com


Dear *** *** (My real full name),
On 12/30/2023 you are scheduled to be charged $9.99 for iCloud+ with 2 TB of storage, but there is a problem with your payment information.
Please update your payment information as soon as possible. If we cannot successfully charge your account, it will be downgraded to the free 5 GB plan and your service may be affected.


Follow the instructions below to update your billing information:

1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store.

2. Tap your Apple ID, then tap View Apple ID. You might be asked to sign in.

3. Tap Manage Payments (if you’re using an older version of iOS, tap Payment Information) and follow the prompts.

There is no link in the email to login or something like most scammer email messages have. The message asked me to check with the setting app.

So I followed the direction and I don’t see any problem with my payment information. My credit card is listed in the Manage Payments information and the expiration date is more than [EDIT] a year away.

Moreover, I just made a purchase using SubWay app to buy food with Apple Pay with my iPad and it went through. I also managed to purchased an app.

So, why did Apple send me this email if everything seems to be fine? How do I know whether I have a real problem or not? I don’t want my data in the iCloud to be wiped out because there is a problem with the payment information I couldn’t identify.

 

[Iwavvns]

NaCl, the only thing I could see as a potential problem is the expiration date of your credit card. Do emails from Apple actually use your last name these days?

 

[casperes1996]

You say expiration is a few months away. That does sound like this could be an early warning for that. I do believe you get this sort of messages like 2 months before expiration

 

[joeblack007]

My daughter got the same message yesterday so I checked her payment details and …nothing. She pays for upgraded storage only. Apple does not send warnings to customer’s that their card is nearing expiration, the system attempts to bill for the charges and if anything is wrong (at that time), they will re-attempt. If the transaction doesn’t complete, you will be notified via email that there is an issue with your payment. Just to add, she had successful charges for some apps so…no payment problem. Valid emails from Apple look like: no_reply@email.apple.com (this was taken from email for iCloud storage).

 

[Sodium Chloride]

NaCl, the only thing I could see as a potential problem is the expiration date of your credit card. Do emails from Apple actually use the last name these days?

The expiration is more than a year away or at least that’s what it said with my physical card. There is no expiration date listed in the setting app. How do I check for expiration date in my setting app?

 

[Sodium Chloride]

You say expiration is a few months away. That does sound like this could be an early warning for that. I do believe you get this sort of messages like 2 months before expiration

It’s actually more than a year away after checking with my actual plastic card.

 

[Sodium Chloride]

My daughter got the same message yesterday so I checked her payment details and …nothing. She pays for upgraded storage only. Apple does not send warnings to customer’s that their card is nearing expiration, the system attempts to bill for the charges and if anything is wrong (at that time), they will re-attempt. If the transaction doesn’t complete, you will be notified via email that there is an issue with your payment.

And if that happens, will there be a grace period before Apple delete your data for not getting the payment through?

 

[casperes1996]

It’s actually more than a year away after checking with my actual plastic card.

Hm yeah, okay. That's bizarre then

 

[Iwavvns]

It’s actually more than a year away after checking with my actual plastic card.

Perhaps I was wrong and it has nothing to do with the expiration date. I have received emails from Apple before and they never use the word "dear".. those emails also never used my last name. Those are the only two potential red flags I see here.

 

[mahamoti]

I received exactly this same email. I have not been able to find anything else indicating a problem with my payment card, and like OP, I've used the card through Apple Pay multiple times w/no issue in the last 24hrs.

 

[OAG7]

I suggest you call Apple. Wonder why no one suggested that yet.

 

[LinusR]

And if that happens, will there be a grace period before Apple delete your data for not getting the payment through?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe if you were to get downgraded (from 2TB to the free 5GB because the payment fails) Apple won't delete your data; but iCloud will not update again, rendering it useless for it's meant to do beyond backups: keeping everything in sync.

 

[joeblack007]

I suggest you call Apple. Wonder why no one suggested that yet.

The only thing a Senior Advisor can see on that end is whether or not your plan is set for ‘auto-renew’. They cannot see your payment method because this is confidential information and there is no tool that will show them whether there is a problem with the payment (it’s completely automated by Apple). If your billing date is end of month (as with iCloud storage) Apple will attempt a transaction on that day. If the payment fails, they will attempt again. If it fails a 2nd time, you will be notified to correct your payment details and should have enough time to do so. Just spoke with a former colleague at Apple and he says that email address does not sound valid at all.

 

[erihp]

I got an email from do_not_reply@itunes.com that seems to be legit. I checked the header and it said do_not_reply@itunes.com


Dear *** *** (My real full name),
On 12/30/2023 you are scheduled to be charged $9.99 for iCloud+ with 2 TB of storage, but there is a problem with your payment information.
Please update your payment information as soon as possible. If we cannot successfully charge your account, it will be downgraded to the free 5 GB plan and your service may be affected.


Follow the instructions below to update your billing information:

1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store.

2. Tap your Apple ID, then tap View Apple ID. You might be asked to sign in.

3. Tap Manage Payments (if you’re using an older version of iOS, tap Payment Information) and follow the prompts.

There is no link in the email to login or something like most scammer email messages have. The message asked me to check with the setting app.

So I followed the direction and I don’t see any problem with my payment information. My credit card is listed in the Manage Payments information and the expiration date is more than [EDIT] a year away.

Moreover, I just made a purchase using SubWay app to buy food with Apple Pay with my iPad and it went through. I also managed to purchased an app.

So, why did Apple send me this email if everything seems to be fine? How do I know whether I have a real problem or not? I don’t want my data in the iCloud to be wiped out because there is a problem with the payment information I couldn’t identify.

Show full headers. Just a reply to isn’t enough to prove email is legit

 

[DKO110]

Got the exact same email for an app subscription. Must be a bug in their system.

 

[Reggaenald]

NaCl, the only thing I could see as a potential problem is the expiration date of your credit card. Do emails from Apple actually use your last name these days?

They do still use the full name, at least in everything but invoices that I receive from Apple.

@Sodium Chloride, like @joeblack007 pointed out, the email doesn’t sound legit.
@itunes, even if it was legit, shouldn’t have anything to do with an iCloud+ subscription.

 

[Reggaenald]

Perhaps I was wrong and it has nothing to do with the expiration date. I have received emails from Apple before and they never use the word "dear".. those emails also never used my last name. Those are the only two potential red flags I see here.

Nope they certainly do also use „dear“ in their emails

 

[P_Watt]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe if you were to get downgraded (from 2TB to the free 5GB because the payment fails) Apple won't delete your data; but iCloud will not update again, rendering it useless for it's meant to do beyond backups: keeping everything in sync.

AFAIK they keep the data for 30 days only

 

[DevyniColiai]

I have received an email like that today as well. Card is fine and i have money on it. Weird.

 

[Iwavvns]

I wonder if this is some kind of new malware that has the ability to screen record but doesn’t have the ability to click into the payment settings in the settings app so it prompts the user to do so while it is recording the screen with OCR.

 

[Feek]

I had this a couple of months ago, the email was at 02:10 and then at 03:15, the payment was taken.

I contacted Apple, they said there had been a glitch, some payments didn’t go through first time so the email was triggered automatically but the payment was then retried shortly after and it was successful.

Contact Apple and check. They are the only ones who can answer this for you.

 

[Animalk]

I also received this strange email. Expiration is years away.

What is strange is that when I go look at my Apple One subscription in the Apple Support app, it says that my renewal is 2 weeks away. There should not have been a charge by them last night.

Update: I called Apple Support and it appears that the credit cards for payments to Apple for things like purchases and subscriptions are registered in a separate system than the Apple Pay Wallet. Apple Pay Wallet is able to receive updates of expiry automatically from Banks as they issue new cards but their Purchasing/Subsciption system can't. The Purchasing/Subscription system still had the old info.

Also one thing to note, is that if a card used in your purchasing/subscription file is also registered in Apple Pay Wallet, it will not let you update the expiry date or the CVV number.

 

[MBAir2010]

im wondering Why did Apple send me an email
about problem with my CC while there seems to
be no cc I my name at all?

I still likes them anyhoo!

 

[onenorth]

I received this email too. It has my first and last name, the date of my iCloud renewal, and the renewal plan, but no links except to the support page.

A few days ago I received a different email from Apple regarding my AppleCare+ subscription, with info about my payment (last four digits of the CC) and a link to "fix" the problem.

Both of these emails were suspicious but had info that only Apple would know. I reported the first one as phishing but now after receiving the second one I realized that the CC info linked to my ApplePay for both of these subscriptions was out of date (old expiration date, same CC card number).

I added the current CC as a new payment via iTunes for Windows. Then on my phone I removed the existing ApplePay card and linked ApplePay to the newly added card. Hopefully this resolves the issue.

 

[alangore]

Like so many other people this month, I have been getting a blizzard of emails from "ITunes Store" with this subject. And like everyone else, I assumed it was a scam because (a) my payment method is the credit card I use daily, including in Apple Pay, and (b) There supposedly no longer any such thing as ITunes Store.

But yesterday on 12/30, a payment message error popped up in Settings of my iOS devices. No scam can do that. The error flag led to the same iCloud settings location referenced in the emails. As before, when I clicked Edit for my credit card, there was no indication of what expiration date iCloud thought my card had. This card did roll over to a new expiration date earlier in the year, and updated automatically in Apple Pay. As before, I tried deleting and then adding the card again, but again this didn't work.

So herewith, my fix: I added a second card, also in my Apple Pay, as a payment method. This must have worked, because I immediately got a flurry of Apple emails indicating that my subscriptions, including my iCloud storage, had been updated.

I have no idea why a known good credit card would be summarily "killed" for use in Apple subscriptions, but this is apparently what happened. If you get these messages, just add a second credit card to the subscription payments panel in Settings. If you don;t have a second card, this might be the time to activate that Apple Card that we are always being asked to sign up for