A few months ago, Apple permanently disabled by account.
In most of these cases, we assume, Apple is right and surely the person did something wrong. Apple can make mistakes and this does not come as surprise to anyone.
Anyway, here is my ordeal.
My reason for writing about this is that if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. With that said, 99% of people will never experience this and I hope, you are in that 99% group.
Wow, this is worrying - particularly when I look at how much I have spend over the years on apps, movies and TV shows.
Did you ever work out what might have triggered the ban?
Youāre getting a ton of traffic to this! Nice write-up.
As mentioned in the blogpost, To this very day, I do not know. I assume an alert was triggered when I attempted to add funds to my account but I do this on a semi regular basis anyway.
Thank you @cornchip
Btw, how do you know I am getting a ton of traffic. I have not personally checked the stats yet,
That was nicely written, thank you.
This side of Apple remains the side I most dislike: there can be an opacity to customer service that baffles me. I see it as an app developer, when apps are rejected along with a reference to a paragraph in the requirements document, and no amount of questioning can get any response other than something along the lines of āthank you for asking, please read this paragraphā.
And I was the 53rd person to click on your link here, which is quite high traffic.
Youāre one of the most popular links on Hacker News. (I realized you submitted it, wasnāt sure if you checked back.)
In the article you didnāt state what the final explanation was, only that it was vague. What did they actually tell you?
@cornchip you are not wrong. The numbers are mind blowing, I am surprised my website didnāt crash
I was told apple account can be disabled for a number of reasons relating to purchases, payment methodsā¦.
It appeared to me that either he didnāt know exactly why or was not at liberty to reveal to me. Either way, I didnāt push the issue. Keep in my mind, the entire process was taking a serious toll on me.
Thanks for sharing this. It is an issue of real concern. It has given me some real food for thought. Coming, as it did, on top of another set of experiences of my own with Safari, either blocking or helping Verizon block a site I wanted to see. Way too many semi monopoly bottlenecks had to be passed on my way to it. in my opinion. I am by no means a libertarian or anything like that either or an āeverything must be freeā guy. I am finding things getting a bit oppressive in a tangible way though.
This is a bit scary. Corporateās often donāt have the checks and balances in place that are fair to customers.
I would be amazed though, that they would be able to take away what you have paid for? If youāve purchased a movie, surely they are legally still obliged to give you access to it?
You donāt purchase digital data/cont/software, You license it, and legally, that license can be revoked, for any reason at all, including whimsy.
Wow, better not buy movies through a service! Looks like DVDs are still the way to go!
Yep. About 20 years ago I bought some DRMāed music from Musicmatch Jukebox (on a PC). The license agreement, which I read, stated that they could remove the ability to play at any time. Sure enough, a few years later they did. So I avoid ābuyingā anything that can be disabled by the seller at a later date.
Hmmm ā¦ so what are you using to post? 
???
DVDs have DRM, too. Rip them for longevity, because the media itself decays. I understand why publishers/producers want DRM. I think itās the digital equivalent of chained libraries, and, like the chains, DRM doesnāt stop thieves but makes the lives of users more difficult.
I love ebooks. But have lost access to many because companies failed, devices changed, standards changed, and DRM servers werenāt active.