This is going to get added to the long list of stories where "actually this was misleading" gets about 2% as much circulation as the initial misconception-spreading story, isn't it?
1. Did Apple talk to Dustin, or just to the media?
2. The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple, and indeed Dustin's article says he was frustrated playing phone tag with multiple departments at Apple, each of whom were unable to help him resolve the issue.
3. Why did Apple Card deny the charge? My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment. It seems that the missed payment in this case would have only been $9.99 for Dustin's iCloud upgrade (which was successful charged and up to date on payments, Dustin said). There are late fees and so forth, but they don't usually just render the card unusable.
4. Why did this happen so fast, and why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers? A customer who in this case had purchased multiple MacBook Pros, as well as iCloud, I'm sure among other things.
5. What ever happened to the trade-in kit that Apple was supposed to send to Dustin? There's no indication that it ever arrived.
How are 3, 4, and 5 questions for Dustin? Dustin is supposed to answer "why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?
> I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.
He did receive emails, which he described in his article. He also described phone calls with Apple that happened after his accounts were disabled, but obviously there was nothing before that. "The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call “hopefully” within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was." https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
> What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?
He purchased the new MacBook Pro in mid-January. Apple sent an "Action Required: Apple Card" email on February 15 regarding the trade-in. The account suspensions started around February 19, "About ten days ago" according to the March 1 article. That seems relatively quick to me. Apple certainly isn't hurting for cash, what's the rush?
> And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.
He only missed one payment, and Apple disabled his accounts shortly thereafter. Nobody is disputing those facts. So what's complete bullshit?
> It’s like saying “have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
No, it's not. I described the timeline. I described how Dustin is a loyal Apple customer. Disabling his accounts over a delayed trade-in seems unnecessary and overly harsh.
> We have heard Apple’s response. It’s now time for Dustin’s response.
This goes back to my question 1. I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response. Especially since everything he says will be closely scrutinized by everyone. After all, Apple's response didn't come until 2 days after the article. Which I'm not complaining about, but we need to give these things time and not demand immediate responses to our hot takes.
As I said - a conclusion. Your conclusion, based on incomplete facts.
Perhaps if Dustin answers you will turn out to be right, and then that will be a reasonable question.
> I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response.
Who expects him to already have a response? That’s an expectation that nobody is talking about except you.
But this is absolutely a question for him to answer.
> The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple,
It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.
> My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment.
Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.
> Why did this happen so fast
The locked Apple ID and iCloud shutdown only happened on the M1 MacBook he purchased. Which makes sense. If I were to abuse the instant credit system and sold the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook on Ebay, the buyer should be able to know quickly if there were any issues with the device so they can rectify appropriately.
> It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.
"Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list." So the calls don't just disappear forever, you still see them when you check your phone. You just don't hear a ring. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099
> Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.
Why would this set off red flags? A failed autopay actually seems a lot more innocent than flat out not trying to pay at all. Especially if the autopay had been working previously.
> the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook
This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.
> This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.
Presumably hundreds of dollars.
Well above what most companies would think of as theft.
Whichever way you look at it, they disabled the account because he hadn’t paid for his computer, which is not unreasonable in itself.
Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when he incorrectly stated that his account had been disabled because of non payment of just one Apple Card bill.
> Presumably hundreds of dollars. Well above what most companies would think of as theft.
This spin is so strange. Dustin is a longtime customer of Apple. Apple has a lot of information on him, and has done a lot of business with him. The idea that now he's suddenly going to become a criminal and steal money from a trade-in credit is absurd. Then what, high-tail it to Mexico and live a life of luxury with those hundreds of dollars?
> Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when
You mean in the tweet? Which has a limit of 280 characters? Because he did mention it in the article that he wrote after the tweet. It's silly to criticize a tweet for having incomplete information. Of course tweets have incomplete information, that's inevitable. Are you going to die on the hill of the tweet? The article expanded on the tweet.
zepto, I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something? Because buying Apple's latest MacBook Pro is a really strange way to bring down the company. Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience? We're all interested in exactly how the problem occurred, but I don't know, I just find it so strange when people feel they need to be Apple's self-appointed unpaid internet defender. Apple, as one of the world's most powerful corporations, can speak for itself if it so chooses, as it just did today.
You know, this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone. Shouldn't that be the bare minimum of customer service? Dustin certainly tried to do that. He only went public after multiple failures to resolve the problem first. Nothing you can say, and no mistakes that Dustin made, can change the fact that there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here.
You are continuing to speculate based on incomplete information.
You are painting a picture, but really that’s all it is until we have more answers.
You really don’t know what happened.
> this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone
Perhaps true. We don’t know for sure, but irrelevant to whether Dustin made bullshit statements. He could have made it public without that.
> Which has a limit of 280 characters?
What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit, completely unsubstantiated by anything He or Apple later said.
That has nothing to do with the character limit.
> I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something?
You can follow the link I posted elsewhere in reply to Dustin himself.
I don’t think it was his goal to harm Apple, however it is definitely some people’s goal, and by posting a false statement, he has created misinformation which such people readily exploit.
> there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here
No. This is just more speculation from you. As we have already established, you really don’t know what happened.
> Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience?
Nobody is tearing anyone down. I’m just saying that we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening. My response is to you drawing conclusions without waiting to hear from him.
He provided incomplete and incorrect information and that has led people to draw faulty conclusions. It would help if he cleared this up.
Even just saying “my bad, I was upset at having my account disabled and jumped to the wrong conclusion in my tweet” would help. Remember he doubled down later and made a second false claim about Apple’s policies.
Why are you defending this anyway? Just because Apple can make press releases, why would you encourage the spread of false information here in this forum?
The moderators do make effort to prevent that, but it takes a certain amount of community support too.
It’s pretty simple - you made a list of questions which I agreed was reasonable, but that the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now. The rest of this discussion stems from you drawing conclusions without waiting for him to reply.
> we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening
> the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now
zepto on the other hand:
> What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit
> he has created misinformation
> He provided incomplete and incorrect information
> made a second false claim
> the spread of false information here
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?
> which such people readily exploit
This is again an over the top description. Apple is doing just fine, raking in the money at record rate. Exploit? Exploit how? Dustin hasn't released a 0day security vulnerability here. Relax, Apple is going to be fine, you don't have to run with your musket to the front line to defend the company from certain death. If one Twitter user could actually do so much damage to Apple, if it were that easy to significantly hurt the company, then Apple would be out of business by now.
Even back in the 90s when Apple was "beleaguered", it wasn't internet commenters like you who saved Apple. It was Apple's own change in technology, business strategy, and leadership that saved Apple. You really don't have to go online and "protect" Apple. They are going to be ok. IMO the army of online defenders actually do more harm than good to Apple, because they make it appear like a religious cult. Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary. Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy. The worst scenario would be if individuals are afraid of ever speaking out about Apple or other corporations, for fear of the online mob, and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro" comments, I want to scream.
Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum. Please look at the HN guidelines.
I think you are trying to suggest that there is some contradiction between me saying that ‘we really don’t know what happened’, and also saying ‘the tweet was bullshit’.
Obviously there is no contradiction. We really don’t know what happened between Apple and Dustin because the two stories leave an incomplete picture. You wouldn’t still have ‘questions’ if this wasn’t true.
We really do know that the tweet (and the comments about Apple’s policy) are bullshit, because those have already been contradicted by both Apple and Dustin.
What we don’t have is Dustin’s explanation for how he came to post them.
If you look back through the comment thread, you’ll see that this conversation is a response to you denying that we needed to hear from Dustin.
Nothing more.
I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here, or denied that there is a problem.
All I have done is point out that you are drawing conclusions that you cannot actually know to be true without more information, which Dustin can provide.
What is your aim in this thread?
> Exploit how?
By taking the falsehoods and magnifying them to create widespread false beliefs.
There are plenty of people with an ideological or personal axe to grind against Apple.
There are also competitors and investors who benefit from bad press about Apple.
Obvious stuff really.
> Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?
I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit, and that we don’t have enough information about his side of what happened.
> Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary.
Agreed. Bear in mind that Dustin is a public entity too. He is a prominent tech blogger, founder, and investor.
Obviously he’s not comparable to the worlds largest corporation in terms of power, but he has had respect in this forum and has influence in his communities.
His original bullshit tweet for example, was echoed to his approx 50,000 followers.
How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
Regardless of present size and power, I think it’s reasonable to want to promote that.
Portraying him as purely a bumbling victim doesn’t do him justice.
Portraying him as ‘loyal’ to Apple is even weirder. Customer loyalty is a figure of speech used in marketing.
It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
> Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy.
Firstly, in context this reads as an an attempt to minimize responsibility for making false statements.
Secondly, if that is your view, then we definitely disagree.
I think that inaccurate statements are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy.
I think it’s important for people to take responsibility when they make false statements, for whatever reason.
Propagating misinformation simply isn’t a good thing to do in this world. It pollutes the discourse and weakens the very critique that I think we do agree is important.
It’s disappointing that you don’t see this.
> and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro"
Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal, nor is there anything for him to ‘fear’.
The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
It is perspective taking by people who are trying to ...
> Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.
It's not a personal insult. Talking out of both sides of your mouth means saying contradictory things, and I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.
> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
> I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case. However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions.
2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage.
3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID account was suddenly unlocked and I got an email from someone saying they are going to try to call again tomorrow." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314385 So yes, hopefully we'll see a follow-up article with further details.
> It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
Agreed. My point in calling him a loyal customer is this if someone is likely to buy again, a company ought to treat them well and give them the benefit of the doubt rather than treating them like a criminal with immediate suspicion. Such treatment is very likely to decrease their odds of buying again. In other words, locking Dustin out of his accounts was bad business, regardless of what Dustin did.
> Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal
You apparently haven't read the various comments that I have.
> The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
In general, I'm very concerned about out of control "fraud detection algorithms", big tech companies locking people out of their accounts based on false positives, and the complete inability of users to contact those companies and get support and restore their accounts. This is where I'm coming from. It's becoming a very big problem, and I disagree strongly with the many people who have claimed that Dustin got what he "deserved". None of us deserve that, no matter what. We're at the mercy of these giant corporations, who appear to have no mercy.
Apple has created perverse incentives for people to go public with problems, because that actually gets results, unlike trying to contact Apple customer service privately. Look how fast Apple reacted after the article was published! If our only recourse is ...
> I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.
An incorrect interpretation, but I accept that you thought that at the time.
>> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
> There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
I think you may be mistaken. I don’t generally make positive comments about Apple.
Clearly you aren’t referring to any such comment here, so this is a pure ad-hominem, and nothing to do with this conversation.
You seem to classify people as ‘Apple defenders’ or ‘cultists’ which doesn’t seem like an accurate way to make sense of what people are doing when you read their comments.
> > I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
> I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case.
As written, the tweet contained no truth whatsoever. It was bullshit.
>> However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
Perhaps, but that is in no way connected to the truth of the tweet.
> 1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions. 2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage. 3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
Not complete bullshit, but also certainly not something we know to be true.
Here’s why:
1. We don’t know Dustin’s side of the full story, so these conclusions themselves are in doubt. We know he hasn’t told us everything yet.
2. Even if he bears them out, you are stating these as if they are generally true, rather than a rare occurrence. You simply don’t know that, and so are making a false generalization.
As pointed out in the prior thread, if this was happening as a matter of course, it would be unlikely that we were only just hearing about it now.
> As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
The only reason anyone would think that at this point is if they had read a false claim about it. If it turns out to be standard practice, we will certainly hear about it from more people who have experienced it.
However we still don’t even know if your interpretation is even valid in this one case, let alone in general.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
Clearly false. It’s well known that headlines influence people, and misinformation is often not checked. Yes, it would be better if people didn’t operate that way, but we know they do.
If you spread misinformation, you are responsible for it. It’s clearly false to say it’s on everyone else for not being sufficiently skeptical.
On this subject of skepticism, it seems like you are now agreeing that we should in fact be skeptical of Dustin, and want to see information corroborating his claim, otherwise it is on us for believing him.
Interesting change of position.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
>>I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID accou...
> As written, the tweet contained no truth whatsoever.
"I forgot to update my Apple Card autopay info" True. "Re-enabling them takes 3-5+ business days." True. It's also true that Apple was holding his accounts hostage, just perhaps for a different reason than he believed. A lot of people seem to be ok with Apple holding his accounts hostage for the trade-in, but I for one am not ok with that.
> As pointed out in the prior thread, if this was happening as a matter of course, it would be unlikely that we were only just hearing about it now.
No, because first of all, it appears that Apple giving advance credit on trade-ins is a very new policy, and they previously waited until the trade-in was returned before giving the credit. Also, it seems there was a coincidence of several factors that don't often occur all together. 1) Failed autopay. 2) Failure to return trade-in. 3) Apple charges card for the trade-in value within just a few days after the failed autopay. 4) Charge is declined just a few days after failed autopay. The timing of all these were crucial, and would not all happen together commonly.
> If you spread misinformation, you are responsible for it. It’s clearly false to say it’s on everyone else for not being sufficiently skeptical.
I disagree with the term "misinformation" here. I'm still waiting to hear more details, but I certainly don't believe that Dustin intentionally said anything false. If something he said turns out to be false, then yes, he should correct it. However, my point is that nobody can force other people to listen to them a second time. You can correct yourself, but if people walk away after the initial story and never pay attention again, what can you do? "Never say anything false in the first place" would be a ridiculous suggestion, because nobody is omniscient, and the pressure to never say anything false just leads to censorship, which is highly undesirable.
> As I said - it’s on him to respond next. He seems to agree. We’re only talking this because you denied that.
No, I said that some of my questions were for Apple rather than Dustin, such as questions 3 and 4. Some questions he can answer, some questions he can't, as he doesn't know everything Apple does and never will.
> I assume you are speaking from ignorance here.
You said personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.
> My guess is that Apple has a lot more data on fraud prevention and customer retention at their scale then you do.
Heh. If Apple has data that they can treat customers like crap and still retain them, I certainly won't dispute that possibility. But a lot of people including myself would never want to do business with a company who thinks like that. I think it's shortsighted.
It does seem like "Tim Apple" operates more in accordance with this idea than "Steve Apple" did.
> Obviously not true. There are many things a customer can do that should cause a business to hold them in bad standing. Suspected theft would be one.
I wasn't talking about hypothetical customers, I was talking about Dustin. We know what he did, or didn't do: update the autopay information on the Apple Card, and send in the old MacBook Pro trade-in.
> There is no evidence at all that Dustin was left with no other recourse than to make an incorrect tweet to correct that.
I'm not even saying this is why Dustin tweeted. I can't read his mind. Maybe he was just pissed and venting, which is a very common thing on Twitter. After all, he was still locked out at the time of the tweet. I am saying that we see a lot of stories in the news media with people complaining about some action that Apple has taken, and the Apple defenders always come out of the woodwork to defend Apple and criticize the complainer as spreading "misinformation" about Apple, as though an individual suffering from Apple's inscrutable systems can be expected to be not only omniscient ...
> As written, the tweet contained no truth whatsoever.
"I forgot to update my Apple Card autopay info" True. "Re-enabling them takes 3-5+ business days." True. It's also true that Apple was holding his accounts hostage, just perhaps for a different reason than he believed.
Yes, and so his tweet was complete bullshit.
> A lot of people seem to be ok with Apple holding his accounts hostage
Nobody except you is talking about accounts being “held hostage”, so it’s just not true to say anyone is OK with that. You are misrepresenting people here.
> From my perspective, there can be no good justification whatsoever for Apple locking Dustin out, and thus the precise reason why it happened is no defense for it.
This is obviously an absurd position.
Refusing service after non-payment is completely normal business practice.
Of course there can be good reasons for it.
It is helpful to know that you going to condemn Apple’s actions regardless of the truth.
It would have been more honest for you to just say that before.
This makes perfect sense of why you weren’t interested in Dustin’s side of the story.
Generally I would not assume this of anyone because it’s uncharitable and one can be wrong even if someone comes off that way, so it’s refreshing to see you openly admit it.
At checkout, he took up the offer of trading in an old MacBook Pro.
He paid the balance on his Apple Card.
He was told he would receive packaging for the old machine and have two weeks to return it.
The packaging never arrived, and he forgot about it.
Apple emailed him to chase return of the machine, and he replied that he was still awaiting packaging.
Apple didn’t reply, and tried to charge his Apple Card for the balance.
This failed because he had forgotten to update his autopay info for his new bank account.
His Apple ID stopped working.*
Apple emailed him to confirm the account was blocked and told him to speak to the Apple Card helpline at Goldman Sachs “to resolve this issue.”
iCloud was still working. ( Luckily )
I am not sure if this is new, or because of pandemic. Usually you have to bring in your trade in Laptop or phone for checking before deducting credit from purchase price. Otherwise we wont have this send them a box and never received it issue. And I am glad Apple still has some sanity.
Yes that is what should normally have happened. I dont know why he was given credit before they received the Trade in Macbook. That is why I am thinking if this is a pendemic thing ( because store aren't open ) or a new policy.
24 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 68.9 ms ] thread1. Did Apple talk to Dustin, or just to the media?
2. The 9to5Mac article says, "if the item is not received, Apple communicates with the customer over email and phone." Yet Dustin reported no phone call from Apple, and indeed Dustin's article says he was frustrated playing phone tag with multiple departments at Apple, each of whom were unable to help him resolve the issue.
3. Why did Apple Card deny the charge? My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment. It seems that the missed payment in this case would have only been $9.99 for Dustin's iCloud upgrade (which was successful charged and up to date on payments, Dustin said). There are late fees and so forth, but they don't usually just render the card unusable.
4. Why did this happen so fast, and why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers? A customer who in this case had purchased multiple MacBook Pros, as well as iCloud, I'm sure among other things.
5. What ever happened to the trade-in kit that Apple was supposed to send to Dustin? There's no indication that it ever arrived.
Frankly, though they are questions for Dustin.
I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.
It would be pretty bad if Apple is claiming to have done this, and didn’t.
The fact that he didn’t mention them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
It just means he didn’t connect them to the suspension of his card, which he had another explanation for.
What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?
I haven’t seen a timeline of what happened that makes that clear.
Either way, Dustin owes us a clarification at this point.
He left a lot out of his original story, and was flat out wrong about Apple’s policy.
His report has lost credibility for me now that we have this additional information.
I agree that it doesn’t mean Apple’s policies are somehow exonerated, but we won’t know that until Dustin either confirms or denies the details.
Let’s note that he said this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26308271
And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.
How are 3, 4, and 5 questions for Dustin? Dustin is supposed to answer "why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?
> I’d like him to confirm that he didn’t receive any calls or emails about this.
He did receive emails, which he described in his article. He also described phone calls with Apple that happened after his accounts were disabled, but obviously there was nothing before that. "The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call “hopefully” within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was." https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
> What makes you think it happened ‘fast’?
He purchased the new MacBook Pro in mid-January. Apple sent an "Action Required: Apple Card" email on February 15 regarding the trade-in. The account suspensions started around February 19, "About ten days ago" according to the March 1 article. That seems relatively quick to me. Apple certainly isn't hurting for cash, what's the rush?
> And that his original tweet that Apple disabled his account after just one missed payment, was complete bullshit.
He only missed one payment, and Apple disabled his accounts shortly thereafter. Nobody is disputing those facts. So what's complete bullshit?
> why is Apple such a hardass with loyal Apple customers" for example?
It’s like saying “have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
It’s really just you making the statement that you want people to hear.
Without hearing from Dustin we can’t draw that conclusion.
Justin wrote what now looks like clear bullshit.
We have heard Apple’s response.
It’s now time for Dustin’s response.
No, it's not. I described the timeline. I described how Dustin is a loyal Apple customer. Disabling his accounts over a delayed trade-in seems unnecessary and overly harsh.
> We have heard Apple’s response. It’s now time for Dustin’s response.
This goes back to my question 1. I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response. Especially since everything he says will be closely scrutinized by everyone. After all, Apple's response didn't come until 2 days after the article. Which I'm not complaining about, but we need to give these things time and not demand immediate responses to our hot takes.
As I said - a conclusion. Your conclusion, based on incomplete facts.
Perhaps if Dustin answers you will turn out to be right, and then that will be a reasonable question.
> I wonder whether Apple even spoke to Dustin, or if he found out the way the rest of us did, on 9to5Mac. If the latter, then you can't expect him to already have a response.
Who expects him to already have a response? That’s an expectation that nobody is talking about except you.
But this is absolutely a question for him to answer.
As I said - these are questions for Dustin.
It's possible Dustin had silence unknown callers turned on.
> My understanding is that it's not common practice in the credit card industry for cards to stop working after one late payment.
Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.
> Why did this happen so fast
The locked Apple ID and iCloud shutdown only happened on the M1 MacBook he purchased. Which makes sense. If I were to abuse the instant credit system and sold the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook on Ebay, the buyer should be able to know quickly if there were any issues with the device so they can rectify appropriately.
"Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list." So the calls don't just disappear forever, you still see them when you check your phone. You just don't hear a ring. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099
> Missing a payment and a failed attempted payment are two separate things that result in different outcomes. Autopay failed which likely set off red flags.
Why would this set off red flags? A failed autopay actually seems a lot more innocent than flat out not trying to pay at all. Especially if the autopay had been working previously.
> the essentially-stolen M1 MacBook
This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.
> This description is over the top. The only amount at issue is the trade-in credit.
Presumably hundreds of dollars.
Well above what most companies would think of as theft.
Whichever way you look at it, they disabled the account because he hadn’t paid for his computer, which is not unreasonable in itself.
Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when he incorrectly stated that his account had been disabled because of non payment of just one Apple Card bill.
This spin is so strange. Dustin is a longtime customer of Apple. Apple has a lot of information on him, and has done a lot of business with him. The idea that now he's suddenly going to become a criminal and steal money from a trade-in credit is absurd. Then what, high-tail it to Mexico and live a life of luxury with those hundreds of dollars?
> Whatever happened, Dustin must have known he hadn’t sent in the trade-in, but he didn’t mention that when
You mean in the tweet? Which has a limit of 280 characters? Because he did mention it in the article that he wrote after the tweet. It's silly to criticize a tweet for having incomplete information. Of course tweets have incomplete information, that's inevitable. Are you going to die on the hill of the tweet? The article expanded on the tweet.
zepto, I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something? Because buying Apple's latest MacBook Pro is a really strange way to bring down the company. Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience? We're all interested in exactly how the problem occurred, but I don't know, I just find it so strange when people feel they need to be Apple's self-appointed unpaid internet defender. Apple, as one of the world's most powerful corporations, can speak for itself if it so chooses, as it just did today.
You know, this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone. Shouldn't that be the bare minimum of customer service? Dustin certainly tried to do that. He only went public after multiple failures to resolve the problem first. Nothing you can say, and no mistakes that Dustin made, can change the fact that there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here.
You are painting a picture, but really that’s all it is until we have more answers.
You really don’t know what happened.
> this never would have become a public issue if Dustin could have just spoken to someone on the phone at Apple and gotten his problem resolved right then over the phone
Perhaps true. We don’t know for sure, but irrelevant to whether Dustin made bullshit statements. He could have made it public without that.
> Which has a limit of 280 characters?
What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit, completely unsubstantiated by anything He or Apple later said.
That has nothing to do with the character limit.
> I have to wonder what you think Dustin's goal is here? Do you think he's "out to get" Apple or something?
You can follow the link I posted elsewhere in reply to Dustin himself.
I don’t think it was his goal to harm Apple, however it is definitely some people’s goal, and by posting a false statement, he has created misinformation which such people readily exploit.
> there was a massive failure of Apple customer service here
No. This is just more speculation from you. As we have already established, you really don’t know what happened.
> Why are you so committed to tearing down one person who experienced a problem that nobody should experience?
Nobody is tearing anyone down. I’m just saying that we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening. My response is to you drawing conclusions without waiting to hear from him.
He provided incomplete and incorrect information and that has led people to draw faulty conclusions. It would help if he cleared this up.
Even just saying “my bad, I was upset at having my account disabled and jumped to the wrong conclusion in my tweet” would help. Remember he doubled down later and made a second false claim about Apple’s policies.
Why are you defending this anyway? Just because Apple can make press releases, why would you encourage the spread of false information here in this forum?
The moderators do make effort to prevent that, but it takes a certain amount of community support too.
It’s pretty simple - you made a list of questions which I agreed was reasonable, but that the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now. The rest of this discussion stems from you drawing conclusions without waiting for him to reply.
> incomplete information
> until we have more answers
> You really don’t know what happened.
> we need to hear from him in order to understand what is happening
> the clarification is clearly for Dustin to give now
zepto on the other hand:
> What he wrote in those 280 characters turned to be total bullshit
> he has created misinformation
> He provided incomplete and incorrect information
> made a second false claim
> the spread of false information here
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?
> which such people readily exploit
This is again an over the top description. Apple is doing just fine, raking in the money at record rate. Exploit? Exploit how? Dustin hasn't released a 0day security vulnerability here. Relax, Apple is going to be fine, you don't have to run with your musket to the front line to defend the company from certain death. If one Twitter user could actually do so much damage to Apple, if it were that easy to significantly hurt the company, then Apple would be out of business by now.
Even back in the 90s when Apple was "beleaguered", it wasn't internet commenters like you who saved Apple. It was Apple's own change in technology, business strategy, and leadership that saved Apple. You really don't have to go online and "protect" Apple. They are going to be ok. IMO the army of online defenders actually do more harm than good to Apple, because they make it appear like a religious cult. Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary. Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy. The worst scenario would be if individuals are afraid of ever speaking out about Apple or other corporations, for fear of the online mob, and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro" comments, I want to scream.
Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum. Please look at the HN guidelines.
I think you are trying to suggest that there is some contradiction between me saying that ‘we really don’t know what happened’, and also saying ‘the tweet was bullshit’.
Obviously there is no contradiction. We really don’t know what happened between Apple and Dustin because the two stories leave an incomplete picture. You wouldn’t still have ‘questions’ if this wasn’t true.
We really do know that the tweet (and the comments about Apple’s policy) are bullshit, because those have already been contradicted by both Apple and Dustin.
What we don’t have is Dustin’s explanation for how he came to post them.
If you look back through the comment thread, you’ll see that this conversation is a response to you denying that we needed to hear from Dustin.
Nothing more.
I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here, or denied that there is a problem.
All I have done is point out that you are drawing conclusions that you cannot actually know to be true without more information, which Dustin can provide.
What is your aim in this thread?
> Exploit how?
By taking the falsehoods and magnifying them to create widespread false beliefs.
There are plenty of people with an ideological or personal axe to grind against Apple.
There are also competitors and investors who benefit from bad press about Apple.
Obvious stuff really.
> Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?
I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit, and that we don’t have enough information about his side of what happened.
> Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary.
Agreed. Bear in mind that Dustin is a public entity too. He is a prominent tech blogger, founder, and investor.
Obviously he’s not comparable to the worlds largest corporation in terms of power, but he has had respect in this forum and has influence in his communities.
His original bullshit tweet for example, was echoed to his approx 50,000 followers.
How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
Regardless of present size and power, I think it’s reasonable to want to promote that.
Portraying him as purely a bumbling victim doesn’t do him justice.
Portraying him as ‘loyal’ to Apple is even weirder. Customer loyalty is a figure of speech used in marketing.
It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
> Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy.
Firstly, in context this reads as an an attempt to minimize responsibility for making false statements.
Secondly, if that is your view, then we definitely disagree.
I think that inaccurate statements are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy.
I think it’s important for people to take responsibility when they make false statements, for whatever reason.
Propagating misinformation simply isn’t a good thing to do in this world. It pollutes the discourse and weakens the very critique that I think we do agree is important.
It’s disappointing that you don’t see this.
> and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro"
Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal, nor is there anything for him to ‘fear’.
The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
It is perspective taking by people who are trying to ...
It's not a personal insult. Talking out of both sides of your mouth means saying contradictory things, and I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.
> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
> I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case. However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions. 2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage. 3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID account was suddenly unlocked and I got an email from someone saying they are going to try to call again tomorrow." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314385 So yes, hopefully we'll see a follow-up article with further details.
> It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
Agreed. My point in calling him a loyal customer is this if someone is likely to buy again, a company ought to treat them well and give them the benefit of the doubt rather than treating them like a criminal with immediate suspicion. Such treatment is very likely to decrease their odds of buying again. In other words, locking Dustin out of his accounts was bad business, regardless of what Dustin did.
> Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal
You apparently haven't read the various comments that I have.
> The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
In general, I'm very concerned about out of control "fraud detection algorithms", big tech companies locking people out of their accounts based on false positives, and the complete inability of users to contact those companies and get support and restore their accounts. This is where I'm coming from. It's becoming a very big problem, and I disagree strongly with the many people who have claimed that Dustin got what he "deserved". None of us deserve that, no matter what. We're at the mercy of these giant corporations, who appear to have no mercy.
Apple has created perverse incentives for people to go public with problems, because that actually gets results, unlike trying to contact Apple customer service privately. Look how fast Apple reacted after the article was published! If our only recourse is ...
It's a bit more than that, isn't it? There are elements of dishonesty.
From Cambridge Idiom Dictionary
> be speaking/talking out of both sides of (your) mouth
> American
> to say different things about the same subject when you are with different people in order to always please the people you are with.
> How can we trust any politicians when we know they're speaking out of both sides of their mouths?
An incorrect interpretation, but I accept that you thought that at the time.
>> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
> There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
I think you may be mistaken. I don’t generally make positive comments about Apple.
Clearly you aren’t referring to any such comment here, so this is a pure ad-hominem, and nothing to do with this conversation.
You seem to classify people as ‘Apple defenders’ or ‘cultists’ which doesn’t seem like an accurate way to make sense of what people are doing when you read their comments.
> > I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
> I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case.
As written, the tweet contained no truth whatsoever. It was bullshit.
>> However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
Perhaps, but that is in no way connected to the truth of the tweet.
> 1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions. 2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage. 3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
Not complete bullshit, but also certainly not something we know to be true.
Here’s why:
1. We don’t know Dustin’s side of the full story, so these conclusions themselves are in doubt. We know he hasn’t told us everything yet.
2. Even if he bears them out, you are stating these as if they are generally true, rather than a rare occurrence. You simply don’t know that, and so are making a false generalization.
As pointed out in the prior thread, if this was happening as a matter of course, it would be unlikely that we were only just hearing about it now.
> As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
The only reason anyone would think that at this point is if they had read a false claim about it. If it turns out to be standard practice, we will certainly hear about it from more people who have experienced it.
However we still don’t even know if your interpretation is even valid in this one case, let alone in general.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty? 9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
Clearly false. It’s well known that headlines influence people, and misinformation is often not checked. Yes, it would be better if people didn’t operate that way, but we know they do.
If you spread misinformation, you are responsible for it. It’s clearly false to say it’s on everyone else for not being sufficiently skeptical.
On this subject of skepticism, it seems like you are now agreeing that we should in fact be skeptical of Dustin, and want to see information corroborating his claim, otherwise it is on us for believing him.
Interesting change of position.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
>>I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID accou...
"I forgot to update my Apple Card autopay info" True. "Re-enabling them takes 3-5+ business days." True. It's also true that Apple was holding his accounts hostage, just perhaps for a different reason than he believed. A lot of people seem to be ok with Apple holding his accounts hostage for the trade-in, but I for one am not ok with that.
> As pointed out in the prior thread, if this was happening as a matter of course, it would be unlikely that we were only just hearing about it now.
No, because first of all, it appears that Apple giving advance credit on trade-ins is a very new policy, and they previously waited until the trade-in was returned before giving the credit. Also, it seems there was a coincidence of several factors that don't often occur all together. 1) Failed autopay. 2) Failure to return trade-in. 3) Apple charges card for the trade-in value within just a few days after the failed autopay. 4) Charge is declined just a few days after failed autopay. The timing of all these were crucial, and would not all happen together commonly.
> If you spread misinformation, you are responsible for it. It’s clearly false to say it’s on everyone else for not being sufficiently skeptical.
I disagree with the term "misinformation" here. I'm still waiting to hear more details, but I certainly don't believe that Dustin intentionally said anything false. If something he said turns out to be false, then yes, he should correct it. However, my point is that nobody can force other people to listen to them a second time. You can correct yourself, but if people walk away after the initial story and never pay attention again, what can you do? "Never say anything false in the first place" would be a ridiculous suggestion, because nobody is omniscient, and the pressure to never say anything false just leads to censorship, which is highly undesirable.
> As I said - it’s on him to respond next. He seems to agree. We’re only talking this because you denied that.
No, I said that some of my questions were for Apple rather than Dustin, such as questions 3 and 4. Some questions he can answer, some questions he can't, as he doesn't know everything Apple does and never will.
> I assume you are speaking from ignorance here.
You said personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.
> My guess is that Apple has a lot more data on fraud prevention and customer retention at their scale then you do.
Heh. If Apple has data that they can treat customers like crap and still retain them, I certainly won't dispute that possibility. But a lot of people including myself would never want to do business with a company who thinks like that. I think it's shortsighted.
It does seem like "Tim Apple" operates more in accordance with this idea than "Steve Apple" did.
> Obviously not true. There are many things a customer can do that should cause a business to hold them in bad standing. Suspected theft would be one.
I wasn't talking about hypothetical customers, I was talking about Dustin. We know what he did, or didn't do: update the autopay information on the Apple Card, and send in the old MacBook Pro trade-in.
> There is no evidence at all that Dustin was left with no other recourse than to make an incorrect tweet to correct that.
I'm not even saying this is why Dustin tweeted. I can't read his mind. Maybe he was just pissed and venting, which is a very common thing on Twitter. After all, he was still locked out at the time of the tweet. I am saying that we see a lot of stories in the news media with people complaining about some action that Apple has taken, and the Apple defenders always come out of the woodwork to defend Apple and criticize the complainer as spreading "misinformation" about Apple, as though an individual suffering from Apple's inscrutable systems can be expected to be not only omniscient ...
"I forgot to update my Apple Card autopay info" True. "Re-enabling them takes 3-5+ business days." True. It's also true that Apple was holding his accounts hostage, just perhaps for a different reason than he believed.
Yes, and so his tweet was complete bullshit.
> A lot of people seem to be ok with Apple holding his accounts hostage
Nobody except you is talking about accounts being “held hostage”, so it’s just not true to say anyone is OK with that. You are misrepresenting people here.
> From my perspective, there can be no good justification whatsoever for Apple locking Dustin out, and thus the precise reason why it happened is no defense for it.
This is obviously an absurd position.
Refusing service after non-payment is completely normal business practice.
Of course there can be good reasons for it.
It is helpful to know that you going to condemn Apple’s actions regardless of the truth.
It would have been more honest for you to just say that before.
This makes perfect sense of why you weren’t interested in Dustin’s side of the story.
Generally I would not assume this of anyone because it’s uncharitable and one can be wrong even if someone comes off that way, so it’s refreshing to see you openly admit it.
> [EDIT] By the way, I just search https://twitter.com/search?q=to%3A%40dcurtis&src=typed_query... and the very first result was "Get fucked you liar". That's just the tip of the iceberg of the comments on the internet.
Very unfortunate, but not clear what this has to do with the conversations we are having on HN.
The tweet that they are responding to is clearly false, but there isn’t any evidence that Justin lied.
It seems much more likely that he made a mistake or posted in the heat of the moment.
It was unwise of him to post such an obviously inflammatory statement without being certain about it.
If he were to simply acknowledge his mistake, it would cast those bullying tweet in an even worse light than they currently are.
I can see that you have been truly upset by what you have seen on Twitter.
He bought an M1 MacBook Pro from apple.com.
At checkout, he took up the offer of trading in an old MacBook Pro.
He paid the balance on his Apple Card.
He was told he would receive packaging for the old machine and have two weeks to return it.
The packaging never arrived, and he forgot about it.
Apple emailed him to chase return of the machine, and he replied that he was still awaiting packaging.
Apple didn’t reply, and tried to charge his Apple Card for the balance.
This failed because he had forgotten to update his autopay info for his new bank account.
His Apple ID stopped working.*
Apple emailed him to confirm the account was blocked and told him to speak to the Apple Card helpline at Goldman Sachs “to resolve this issue.”
iCloud was still working. ( Luckily )
I am not sure if this is new, or because of pandemic. Usually you have to bring in your trade in Laptop or phone for checking before deducting credit from purchase price. Otherwise we wont have this send them a box and never received it issue. And I am glad Apple still has some sanity.