After using an Apple gift card, my Apple account, which I had been using for about 25 years, was frozen and I was unable to access my photos and devices.
Game developer Paris Buttfield-Addison reported that after trying to redeem a $500 Apple gift card she bought from a major retailer, her Apple account was permanently locked without explanation, leaving her unable to access her iPhone, Mac, and other devices, as well as over 20 years of data.
20 Years of Digital Life, Gone in an Instant, thanks to Apple | hey.paris
Batfield-Addison, a nearly 30-year Apple user and former author of technical books on Apple's proprietary programming languages, Objective-C and Swift, has been using the same Apple account since the iTools era around 2000, storing several terabytes of family photos and messaging history.
On December 13, 2025, Batfield-Addison purchased a $500 Apple gift card from a major retailer to pay for a 6TB iCloud+ storage plan, but for some reason the code failed to redeem.
The retailer agreed to reissue the card number, saying it may have been compromised, but shortly afterward, Buttfield-Addison's account was locked.
An Apple support representative suggested the problem might be due to a fraudulent gift card. 'If I can't trust the legitimacy of a gift card purchased from a major retailer and there's no recourse, what can I do?' Butfield-Addison said. She then sent Apple the receipt, showing the serial number and purchase location.
However, Batfield-Addison's account was eventually flagged as 'suspended in accordance with Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions.' This effectively disabled his $30,000 worth of Apple devices, and he lost access to all the software and media he had purchased. Furthermore, he was unable to download his iCloud photos due to an authentication error, and he no longer had any high-capacity devices to sync them to.
An Apple support representative explained that only the 'Media and Services' section of the account was blocked, but in reality, I was signed out of iMessage and was unable to sign out of my suspended iCloud account.
Furthermore, even the secure file transfer system that Apple uses to exchange information relies on Apple IDs, meaning she couldn't log in, and many of her methods for seeking support didn't work, Batfield-Addison said. When she asked Apple support staff for an explanation, they simply said they couldn't help her, and suggested she go directly to Apple's Australian headquarters in Sydney to lodge her complaint.
In particular, Batfield-Addison described the senior advisor's suggestion to 'create a new Apple account and update your payment information' as the most humiliating thing she experienced. 'Legally, this is problematic because your license to use the service has been revoked. Technically, creating a new account on your current device is considered a circumvention of security measures, and there's a high chance that it will be revoked again. This kind of evasive behavior could lead to permanent expulsion from the Apple Developer Program,' she said.
Butfield-Addison's complaints have been picked up by various news outlets, and at the time of writing, she received a message from an Apple executive relations representative saying that the company was 'looking into the matter,' but that the issue of her suspended Apple account had not yet been resolved. On December 15, she received a message from an Apple representative saying that they were unable to help her. She then asked, 'Can anyone recommend a lawyer who can help me write a complaint to Apple or help me sue them?'
Anyone wanna recommend a lawyer to help me write a nastygram to Apple, and/or sue them? Cheers.
— Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison ( @hey.paris ) December 15, 2025 15:14
A similar issue was reported on Reddit in 2021. The poster purchased and registered 11 Apple gift cards, but their Apple account was permanently banned, rendering them unable to use any media, apps, or content they had purchased. Apple later explained that a bug in the fraud detection algorithm had caused a false positive, and the poster's Apple account was reinstated.
Apple will permanently disable your account for App Store and iTunes if you buy eleven Apple gift cards : apple
https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r8b1lu/apple_will_permanently_disable_your_account_for/
There are also stories of people who have had their entire Apple account frozen because they forgot to update their bank account number on Apple Card, Apple's credit card.
Apple ID frozen due to Apple Card setting error - GIGAZINE
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in Web Service, Smartphone, Posted by log1i_yk