My father recently had his Apple iTunes account hacked - an unknown person used it to buy £50 worth of stuff from iTunes. (This seems to me to be a very odd thing to bother hacking - unless they’re just buying iTunes Plus stuff, anything they buy will become useless when they lose access to the account. Anyway…)
So he contacted Apple and Apple dutifully deactivated the account. But here’s where it gets odd. Their solution to the problem is for him to create a brand new iTunes Store account and just start again.
This completely ignores the fact that he’ll lose access to all the stuff he’s previously bought under the old account. Their solution? Burn it to CD and re-import it (thus suffering the inevitable quality loss), or… buy all his music again!
It’s really lazy and greedy of Apple not to have a way of dealing with hacked accounts - surely a change of password would be all that is required to re-secure his old account, but they outright refused to do so. Not even offering him a credit to re-buy all his old music is just cold.
Very disappointing, Apple. I expect better.
A quote from their email:
I understand that you would like to gain access to your original iTunes Store account. Please understand that I am not able to activate this account for you. This account has been permanently disabled due to suspected fraud.
As I stated in our previous email, you are able to continue to play your iTunes Store purchases so long as your computer is authorized. Keep in mind that we have disabled your account and have not cancelled it. You can authorize the computer by entering in the account name and password.
I understand that managing your content on two accounts can be difficult. You do have the option of repurchasing your music under your new account. You also can burn the music to a back up disc and then import those items in to your new account as well.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[...] Surprisingly poor customer service from Apple’s iTunes Store - One more reason that I refuse to buy anything with DRM. [...]
November 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Apple’s e-mail makes clear that your Dad isn’t losing anything except the ability to make new purchases or download old ones from the old account. He can still listen to and watch everything he bought, and if he buys new hardware he can still authorize it to play the old content. He only has to repurchase or burn-and-rip his music if he wants it to appear under his new iTunes account, and he only needs that if he was going to re-download lost files after a hard-disk crash instead of backing them up.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Nic:
The issue is that iTunes can only be authorised against one account at a time. If you want to listen to new music purchased - and music from your old account, he will continually have to re-login to switch between the two, which isn’t really acceptable.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Dude, just authorize BOTH accounts with the same computer. Do it once, you’re set. You don’t have to keep switching between authorizations; they can both work AT THE SAME TIME!
November 10th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
admin:
Incorrect! You can authorize iTunes against as many accounts at once as you want. I do it all the time. The limit is 5 computers per account–it’s not in terms of accounts per computer.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
It sounds to me like Apple is actually trying to do a lot on their end to investigate the hacked account. That’s surprisingly *good* customer service. They’ve explained how your father does *not* have to buy all his music again.
As a personal anecdote, my computer crashed taking all my music with it. I called Apple about my iTunes account and, after some understandable convincing on my part, they actually allowed me to download everything I had ever downloaded from iTunes again without paying.
That’s more than surprisingly *good* customer service. That’s outstanding customer service.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I believe they would have to pay royalties on the music if they were to just authorize it all to the new account. What they are doing allows you to interact with the music just as you would have before, with the exception of being able to purchase with that account.
Just be sure to keep your stuff backed up in case your hard drive fails since you won’t be able to download it all again.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
My advice…do not use iTunes. I switched to a non-drm mp3 provider (amazon) and couldn’t be happier. Before I left iTunes I downloaded a program to strip the drm from what the music I purchased. This falls in a grey area of legality, but I figure if I paid for the music I should have the right to alter the source files.
Amazon, Walmart, and Amie Street are all non-drm and in MP3 format. And, if you really like itunes media management software, you can still use it.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Matt:
In general I agree with you, but we’re in the UK, and Amazon and the others don’t sell digital music here.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
They have provided you two options. One is to repurchase your music under a new account, the option you chose to highlight because you are currently irritated at the situation. The other option, to burn and rip the purchased music, is a hassle but a valid option that will prevent you from having to manage two accounts. I don’t see the problem. Apparently what you wanted was for Apple to make it like it never happened.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
rip it to flac and you’ll have no quality loss. also, that’s what you get for using drm-enabled music services.
the more money you send these greedy corps, the more they will own you. rebel against our corporate overlords!!
November 10th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Josh:
What’s frustrating is that Apple could, quite simply, “make it like it never happened”. Simply changing the password on the old account and reactivating it would suffice.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Arrgh…me don’t seem to be havin’ that problem matey!
November 11th, 2008 at 12:04 am
http://xkcd.com/488/
“Demand DRM-Free files”
November 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
That’s what happens when you rent music. Amazon’s MP3 store is awesome.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
jambarama:
Again, I tend to agree with you, but Amazon don’t sell digital music in the UK.
November 27th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
my account was hacked on 11/19/08. Apple is refusing to cancel the charges even though the offender changed my user name and password. I think the vulnerabilty is through apple because I don’t have a password that 1) is logical, 2) is known to anyone. I am the only one that uses my computer. How do you think your account got hacked? The only other thing I can come up with is a vulnerabilty through TuneUp Companion, which I added in the last month or so.
November 30th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
My account was hacked on 11/27, changed our password, bought 2 $51 dollar gift cards and a single song for $1. We haven’t used Itunes to download any songs in the past couple of months, so OBVIOUSLY its on Apples end. They sent the gift cards and song to an email address that will only be provided by ITunes to the police. Apple will be getting notified that if they do not update/change/improve their security, they will be reported to the NY Attorney General for making false claims about how secure their system is. If need be a class action lawsuit will be filed.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
My account just got hacked this evening, I found out when I received 2 email receipts for gift cards totalling £100 which were email to some Hotmail account.
Itunes *was* linked to my bank debit card so I’ll call the bank in the morning, in the meantime I’ve set iTunes payment options to”none” and reset my password and secret question (very insecure reminder method, Apple should not be using it).
What I hate is that there is no phone number to call Apple re iTunes issues, it all happens over email. Mind you I found out this evening that my banks fraud dept is closed on Sundays…
I hope Apple don’t lock out my iTunes account as I’ve bought almost 700 music tracks, tv shows and so on over the past few years and there’s no way I’m burning that lot to CD to reimport and I’m certainly not buying it again!.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Hello…. he should have been refunded, that’s the main issue. Customer service could have done that. If they would have done that we woulnt be here making comment. Don’t ever work customer service people. U would suck!
February 26th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Someone hacked into iTunes using my Debit card and emptied my checking account with 9 purchases to iTunes. When I emailed iTunes, they promply emailed me twice with information on buying a membership for so much a month. So much for them reading what I had to say.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The style of writing is very familiar . Did you write guest posts for other blogs?
April 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I do not.