Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️
Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it.
Back up your important stuff. This is not new advice.
Its not even about backup. The author was locked to such an extent in the apple ecosystem. They lost their developer ID, apple ID. Cannot use imessage, transfer files, etc. All because apple decided to do so for a gift card which they considered unauthorized.
This is the risk with closed systems.