iTunes/Apple 1.98 Euro transactions on my O2 Moneycard...

HellFireClub · 04-08-2011 04:45AM #1

I'd love to know what folks might make of this...

I have an iPhone 4 that I use for work. I also have the audacity to have an O2 Moneycard (Visa debit/Pre-Paid Visa Card).

I rarely buy anything from iTunes, but I've bought the odd song when I felt like I wanted to and when I had sufficient credit on the above card.

So I put the card number for the above O2 card, into my iTunes account for the purposes of being able to download FREE APPS, (because iTunes force you to register a credit/mastercard with them, even if you are just trying to download free apps!)

So, next thing I check my online O2 MoneyCard statement and there are literally dozens of attempts by iTunes to take an amount of 1.98 Euro off my card.

I got onto iTunes via e-mail and asked them how on earth I am in a situation where iTunes/Apple are trying to take 1.98 Euro off me every time I try to download a FREE APP, (they force me to confirm my credit card/payment credentials even though I am not purchasing anything).

So, here's where it get's seriously messed up!!! iTunes/Apple, tried to tell me, (despite O2 confirming the exact opposite!), that they never tried to take 1.98 Euro off my account.

So, I have the neck to e-mail iTunes/Apple and ask them why are UNAUTHORISED transactions occuring on my O2 Moneycard account, when I am trying to download free apps for my phone.

I am then told that I am imaging that this is actually happening, the response is to assume, (as a customer calling them with a complaint/problem!!!), that I am in fact not the account holder but a fraudster, and they then proceed to disable my iTunes account because they reckon that my account has been cracked/interfered with and that the person e-mailing them (ME!!!!), is trying to commit a fraud!!!

So, one month after having the neck to ask why I have dozens of attempts by iTunes/Apple to take 1.98 Euro out of my credit card account, without my authorisation, which is a matter of record as these attempts are recorded on my credit card statement, I have my account shut down and iTunes are refusing to attend to this issue on my behalf, instead attempting to let on that my credit card account has been hacked and that the person making this complaint to them (ME!!!), is a robbber.

Mods, I will forward the e-mail exchanges that I am in possession of and also the dozens of attempts by iTunes/Apple to take 1.98 Euro from my account, in order to confirm what I am saying here...

I posted this to warn any people who have O2 pre-paid Visa cards to RUN A MILE from Apple/iTunes or any Apple product, and avoid their combative and vindictive customer service people who will just close your account if you raise a query that they cannot deal with and run rings around you.

I got this piece of scrap iPhone from Vodafone and I'm handing it back to them tomorrow and insisting on a non-Apple product replacement, it's dropping every second call, touchscreen works 50% of the time, meaning that I can't answer half of my calls as the touchpad will not respond when I try to take a call..

As a business user, I rely on back up, decent customer service, and most fo all, I need to be able to answer my phone when it rings, and when I run into the kind of utterly undescribable incompetence that Apple clearly are standing over in terms of their customer service team, I'd rather have no phone or connectivity at all.

Bad enough that they cannot resolve the original issue, but when you stand up to them, they disable your account and you can't escalate anything because they refuse to escalate anything to a more senior person and they will just kick you off their services rather than listen to you as a customer.

I've never been more frustrated in my life, the customer service people at Apple make Ryanair look like a customer advocate.

Never again, please anyone thinking of buying an Apple product, have a good long hard think and see what else is out there, because I don't know how on earth a company with such hopelessly braindead and vindictive customer service people, ever managed to turn out an iPhone...

I say this in all seriousness: If you have to get onto Apple/iTunes with a problem, based on my experience over the last month as a CUSTOMER, you will be dealing with the lowest form of intectually braindead spastic that you could ever fear to find at the other end of an online query.

I contacted them about attempts to take money without authorisation from my CC account, they first lied about it, then they made out I was a criminal and on that basis they disabled my account, then they came back and said the problem was that my account was a pre-paid Visa card as opposed to a conventional type Visa Credit Card...

One month later, issue still unresolved and account still disabled despite nearly 20 e-mails to them. Decide for yourselves folks...

The Mad Hatter · 04-08-2011 05:02AM

This is a Visa problem, not an Apple problem. Any new credit card registered with any company will have a small transaction made on it (iirc it can be up to €7) to make sure there's money in the account. It's refunded within a couple of days.

HellFireClub · 04-08-2011 05:05AM

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

This is a Visa problem, not an Apple problem. Any new credit card registered with any company will have a small transaction made on it (iirc it can be up to €7) to make sure there's money in the account. It's refunded within a couple of days.

So why all the lies and the nonesense??? Why not just say that and clear the matter up?

Trevor451 · 04-08-2011 05:06AM

Is there any advantage the O2 money card has over a visa debit card from a bank such as Ulster bank or permanent tsb?

HellFireClub · 04-08-2011 05:08AM

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

This is a Visa problem, not an Apple problem. Any new credit card registered with any company will have a small transaction made on it (iirc it can be up to €7) to make sure there's money in the account. It's refunded within a couple of days.

By the way what you have said is absolute rubbish. I have an online business, I sell online every day and I cannot try to touch funds in a customers account without an authorisation, regardless of how "new" the card is or regardless of what type of card it is (pre-paid as opposed to any other type).

HellFireClub · 04-08-2011 05:17AM

Trevor451 wrote: »

Is there any advantage the O2 money card has over a visa debit card from a bank such as Ulster bank or permanent tsb?

The problem seems to centre around the fact that if you have an 02 Moneycard, you cannot spend funds that you do not have.

If you have a standard Visa Card, they can try this type of "pre-authorisation" and you will never see it on your statement because they are assuming that you have some credit left to cover the query. But if you have a pre-paid Visa Card, they can't do this with your pre-paid card because the 1.98 will come off your card and get refunded 10-20 days later.

What is happening is that if you register an O2 Moneycard with iTunes, they will try to put an UNAUTHORISED test transaction of 1.98 Euro onto your card, to see if you have credit or if the card is valid and this happens regardles of whether you are actually purchasing something or not, depending if they make you "validate" your billing details. If you have sufficient loading on your pre-paid O2 card, the money will come off your card and if iTunes force you to "validate" your new card, as many times as they want, you could be seeing a heap of 1.98 Euro charges coming off your pre-paid account, TO UPDATE A FREE APP!!!

If that transaction does not go through, (I accept that they will refund it within 10-20 days as they say), but in my case, I had a few updates for my FREE apps, that I was notified about and when I tried to download these FREE updates next thing, I have a load of attempts to take 1.98 Euro off my O2 Moneycard.

I hadn't loaded any funds onto the card (because I was updating FREE apps) but then my iTunes account starts acting up and I can't update FREE apps that suddenly stop working!!!

I would rather not update anything, I would rather not give iTunes any of my financial information, unless that it, that I wish to actually purchase something from them, but these greedy corporate saps try to strong arm me into sharing my private financial information with them...

Long story cut short, I'm done with Apple, I can tolerate mistakes but it's what happens after a mistake that makes me think about who I'm dealing with. I had the brass neck to complain to iTunes about dozens of transactions on my Visa card account and I get my account locked for having the neck to complain and one month later I still have no answer...

Cabaal · 04-08-2011 07:52AM

HellFireClub wrote: »

I got this piece of scrap iPhone from Vodafone and I'm handing it back to them tomorrow and insisting on a non-Apple product replacement,

An unreasonable request,
Your issue with Apple's iTunes account and O2 are NOTHING to do with Vodafone,

it's dropping every second call, touchscreen works 50% of the time, meaning that I can't answer half of my calls as the touchpad will not respond when I try to take a call..

You have to give Vodafone the opportunity to resolve the issues you are having with the phone, looking to replace your phone without giving them any opportunity to fix the issues is unreasonable.

As a business user, I rely on back up, decent customer service, and most fo all, I need to be able to answer my phone when it rings,

Ok fair enough,

and when I run into the kind of utterly undescribable incompetence that Apple clearly are standing over in terms of their customer service team, I'd rather have no phone or connectivity at all.

Again your iTunes account issue has nothing to do with how your iPhone makes and receives calls, different depts in Apple handle such things and have very different policys.

Your assuming they can't resolve a technical fault with a iPhone.

hoodwinked · 04-08-2011 08:43AM

HellFireClub wrote: »

because iTunes force you to register a credit/mastercard with them, even if you are just trying to download free apps!.

also this is 100% not true, i have registered two itunes accounts, one here and one in the states without a credit/mastercard card.

you can still do so by downloading a free app when it takes you to the payment screen there is an option saying "no card" or something along those lines.

DubDJ · 04-08-2011 08:48PM

OP this is definitely an authorization hold on Apple's part.

When you link up a pre-paid card to your account they put the hold on €1.98 to see if you have available funds. The same thing happened to me before with a 3V card and after emailing 3V they told me to take it up with Apple and Apple then informed me that it was a hold and would be returned within a few days depending on the CC company. Which on 3V's site said 10-20 days AFAIK.

But once you link this card up once the holds will stop. The repeated attempts to subtract money was probably because you had no funds on the card at the time.

However I have to disagree with your description of Apple. From personal experience there customer care and replacements are the best i've ever dealt with. A friend had his Macbook damaged and even though he was out of warranty by a month Apple still replaced it for him for free all in good faith.
They actually have a really good reputation when it comes to dealing with customer complaints which isn't a common thing for them.

They we're wrong to accuse you of imagining things and being a thief yourself as they should know about these authorization holds. But then again there is a lot of account hacking going on lately. A friend had her's hacked and someone used iTunes to purchase a few things but after one email to Apple they refunded the money to her.

Just a bad experience with them on your behalf i'd say.

booboo88 · 04-08-2011 10:29PM

HellFireClub wrote: »

The problem seems to centre around the fact that if you have an 02 Moneycard, you cannot spend funds that you do not have.

you cant do that either with visa debit?

padocon · 05-08-2011 01:13AM

Well that is the disadvantage with all of these pre pay cards, they offer no protection, if that was not a prepay card and you called up master card or visa etc the problem would be sorted very quickly. As for Apple customer care via Itunes I have never had a problem with them and they have been better than good for refunding a song I downloaded by mistake etc. Did you contact Apple by email or via the itunes store? Any time I have ever called Apple by phone I have not been entirely satisfied.

matchthis · 05-08-2011 09:00AM

I have the O2 money card myself. Registered to iTunes when I got it and started downloading paid apps. I noticed the next day that I had 3 of these 1.98 charges. It got refunded onto my account a few days later. I put it down to be a new card being registered.
Added same card to my playstation account and 2 €1 csharges went onto my account, but it would not let me make any purchase. I'm guessing that once the charges are refunded the card is validated and can be used.
I guess it's just companies protecting themselves against a new form of payment. Prevention being better than cure and all that jazz.

keithclancy · 05-08-2011 04:58PM

Paypal have been doing it for ages, why the 2 euro charge, Paypal is only a few cents.

DubDJ · 05-08-2011 05:33PM

keithclancy wrote: »

Paypal have been doing it for ages, why the 2 euro charge, Paypal is only a few cents.

PayPal Charges your card €1 when you connect a new one to your account. And then if you want to verify your Credit Card (Optional) the make an authorization hold of €1.50 which is refunded in a couple of days.

brendanL · 06-08-2011 11:47AM

This has been going on for quite some time,
Basically it's a test transaction.

booboo88 · 06-08-2011 11:51AM

DubDJ wrote: »

PayPal Charges your card €1 when you connect a new one to your account. And then if you want to verify your Credit Card (Optional) the make an authorization hold of €1.50 which is refunded in a couple of days.

I did wonder why my online banking thing wasnt adding up

iTunes/Apple 1.98 Euro transactions on my O2 Moneycard...

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