Man Sues Apple for Terminating Account with $25,000 in Purchases

I got banned from Facebook over a fluke (that I’m assuming was triggered by AI unable to understand sarcasm) and lost all of my Oculus library and made my VR headsets paperweights.. I hope the guy wins.
For as many good things Apple does, they do things that are infinitely worse by comparison ... or just downright illogical. Facebook randomly banned me as well, and I've never posted anything, commented on anything, or liked anything. So ... no idea there, lol. All I do on there is keep in touch with family and friends, especially to see if they're okay during the pandemic. Maybe I looked at a conservative website they didn't like or something. Who knows? o_O
 
Pretty sure he wasn’t paying full price for his iTunes cards. Lots of sites out there offering 60% off or more on valid keys as long as you don’t care where they came from. Apple has a long list of the keys obtained that way and they’ve been letting that list grow long. Have one or 2 of those keys in your history and they’ll over look it, have dozens or hundreds and they are going to kill it.
 
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I am due for a new window unit and was looking at a 15k BTU one that Home Depot is now selling. Still runs off a 15A circuit (the largest you used to be able to get was 12k BTU) and is a dual stage compressor from what it looked like the box was saying. Box claims it is 25% more efficient than other units.

Last window units I bought were LG and while they worked a lot better than the dying ones I had before that, they have all started having issues after about 3 years... Bleh.

I bet your old unit uses R-12 doesn't it? The absolute best of the best refrigerant in regards to cooling efficiency. Be very, very sad if it ever dies.
No it uses R-22 like 2.5 Pounds of it! R-12 was mostly for older mobile Acs in vehicles and older refrigerators.
The new refrigerants are basically just Propane (no accessories unfortunately :) ) or IsoButane so flammable stuff not like they have much in them these days.
I think modern ones are all made in the same factory in China so just stamped with a different "brand" and different cosmetic pieces.
However the LG ones use a DC compressor "Inverter" with Variable Refrigerant Flow VRF so it never really shuts off just slows down as less cooling is needed or ramps back up when more is needed, just like most mini-splits do.
So if I had the need for a modern unit and the extra $ I would get the LG Inverter units.
 
You do what most people do, and that's get a Plex server going. Or in my case you get Jellyfin going. It's much easier to just buy the stuff you already own, like on the Apple store but it's also easy for Apple to just take it away.
You have a strange notion of what most people do, if I think about the time it took to setup my first plex server, I cannot imagine my parents doing that.

When has anyone ever done that for free?
Apple did it, people that bought HD movies in the past got the 4K version for some of them when they started to pop up in some market I think:
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-get-a-4k-movie-on-the-itunes-store-if-you-redeem-1828060243

Starting late last year, Apple decided to give HD movie owners free upgrades to the film’s 4K version, if one existed.

Has SVOD get more and more popular, actually buying movies becoming ultra niche versus say 2004-2006 DVD boom era (probably the most profitable time in hollywood history), incentive and bonus for buying a title could be that the license include access to future special edition if they are made, instead of having to buy it multiple time like people that bought star wars on Betamax, than VHS, than videodisk, than DVD than BluRay and after that a D+ account to watch them.
 
You have a strange notion of what most people do, if I think about the time it took to setup my first plex server, I cannot imagine my parents doing that.
Great rewards come with great effort.
Apple did it, people that bought HD movies in the past got the 4K version for some of them when they started to pop up in some market I think:
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-get-a-4k-movie-on-the-itunes-store-if-you-redeem-1828060243

Starting late last year, Apple decided to give HD movie owners free upgrades to the film’s 4K version, if one existed.

Has SVOD get more and more popular, actually buying movies becoming ultra niche versus say 2004-2006 DVD boom era (probably the most profitable time in hollywood history), incentive and bonus for buying a title could be that the license include access to future special edition if they are made, instead of having to buy it multiple time like people that bought star wars on Betamax, than VHS, than videodisk, than DVD than BluRay and after that a D+ account to watch them.
I'm too PCMasterRace to understand how the itunes store works. So do you download movies or stream them off iTunes? Because if you stream them then free 4k upgrade seems like a rather outdated free upgrade.

I am due for a new window unit and was looking at a 15k BTU one that Home Depot is now selling. Still runs off a 15A circuit (the largest you used to be able to get was 12k BTU) and is a dual stage compressor from what it looked like the box was saying. Box claims it is 25% more efficient than other units.

Last window units I bought were LG and while they worked a lot better than the dying ones I had before that, they have all started having issues after about 3 years... Bleh.

I bet your old unit uses R-12 doesn't it? The absolute best of the best refrigerant in regards to cooling efficiency. Be very, very sad if it ever dies.
I'm going to use a Dustoff can to recharge my 1985 Porsche 928. Fuck R134A conversions as the AC always ends up worse.
 
I'm too PCMasterRace to understand how the itunes store works. So do you download movies or stream them off iTunes? Because if you stream them then free 4k upgrade seems like a rather outdated free upgrade.
I think it was similar to songs, you could do both, now buying movies (would it be dvds or on something like an itunes store) is a bit a thing of the past has svod became so popular.

It would have been like receiving the 4k bluray version of Alien by the mail because that you bought the 1080p one 3 years before a 4k remaster got released or a code to download it.
 
Not sure what this has to do with this thread....LG is much better than Samsung. Samsung junk have all broken on me within 2 years of purchase. LG stuff seems to last as I have yet to have anything LG fail.
You must not have had a LG G4 or a V10.
Of my sample size of 4, 100% of those devices failed within 2-3 years. (Snapdragon 808 specific problem).
Literally EVERY other phone I had has never "failed" because of a non battery issue. It's a shame because those phones had replaceable batteries and I wanted to use them forever lol.
If my Note 4 worked with my current carrier I'd probably still be using it.
 
You must not have had a LG G4 or a V10.
Of my sample size of 4, 100% of those devices failed within 2-3 years. (Snapdragon 808 specific problem).
Literally EVERY other phone I had has never "failed" because of a non battery issue. It's a shame because those phones had replaceable batteries and I wanted to use them forever lol.
If my Note 4 worked with my current carrier I'd probably still be using it.
I've owned a LG V10, V20, V30. But I was merely talking about Appliances and TVs which is what the post was about I was replying too.
 
I'm too PCMasterRace to understand how the itunes store works. So do you download movies or stream them off iTunes? Because if you stream them then free 4k upgrade seems like a rather outdated free upgrade.
On iTunes (and the Apple TV app) you can both download and stream your purchases and rentals. You can have a copy on your computer but stream it to your smart TV.

Apple had 4K versions of movies back in 2017, and it actually broke some ground by refusing to charge extra for 4K releases like you saw at the time. That also meant that you had to wait for some movies to show up as studios dragged their heels, so any "outdated" aspects are more to do with companies making 4K movies available than Apple's willingness to supply them.
 
No it uses R-22 like 2.5 Pounds of it! R-12 was mostly for older mobile Acs in vehicles and older refrigerators.
The new refrigerants are basically just Propane (no accessories unfortunately :) ) or IsoButane so flammable stuff not like they have much in them these days.
I think modern ones are all made in the same factory in China so just stamped with a different "brand" and different cosmetic pieces.
However the LG ones use a DC compressor "Inverter" with Variable Refrigerant Flow VRF so it never really shuts off just slows down as less cooling is needed or ramps back up when more is needed, just like most mini-splits do.
So if I had the need for a modern unit and the extra $ I would get the LG Inverter units.
Assuming you're in the US, any unit made (not necessarily sold) after 2010 should be on R-410a which is not flammable below 100c at 1 atm. Older units would be R-22, aka Freon. A lot of companies had a pretty large stock of R-22 equipment made, but not sold, prior to the 2010 cutoff, and the law allowed new installations of R-22, so long as the date of manufacture was pre-2010. I remember seeing a lot of large commercial (30-100 ton) units being installed in 2012-2014 still using R-22.

The EPA currently restricts the charge size for R600a (isobutane), R290 (propane), and R441 to 150g, not nearly enough for a 1 ton (12kbut) cooling capacity. Full size fridges using those refrigerants will start showing up in 2022 give or take as various states start banning the use of R-134a for that purpose.
 
Assuming you're in the US, any unit made (not necessarily sold) after 2010 should be on R-410a which is not flammable below 100c at 1 atm. Older units would be R-22, aka Freon. A lot of companies had a pretty large stock of R-22 equipment made, but not sold, prior to the 2010 cutoff, and the law allowed new installations of R-22, so long as the date of manufacture was pre-2010. I remember seeing a lot of large commercial (30-100 ton) units being installed in 2012-2014 still using R-22.

The EPA currently restricts the charge size for R600a (isobutane), R290 (propane), and R441 to 150g, not nearly enough for a 1 ton (12kbut) cooling capacity. Full size fridges using those refrigerants will start showing up in 2022 give or take as various states start banning the use of R-134a for that purpose.

Yep Im in the US I do remember HVAC people being able to buy "dry" units they were R-22 units but came empty as most condensors (outdoor unit) usually came pre-charged for 20' of lines but the 2010 date ban meant they were shipped empty for replacement use only.
 
You must not have had a LG G4 or a V10.
Of my sample size of 4, 100% of those devices failed within 2-3 years. (Snapdragon 808 specific problem).
Literally EVERY other phone I had has never "failed" because of a non battery issue. It's a shame because those phones had replaceable batteries and I wanted to use them forever lol.
If my Note 4 worked with my current carrier I'd probably still be using it.
My g4 was replaced because of a poor charge port.

Never had the black screen issues.

Also went through 3 batteries.
 
I got banned from Facebook over a fluke (that I’m assuming was triggered by AI unable to understand sarcasm) and lost all of my Oculus library and made my VR headsets paperweights.. I hope the guy wins.

Have you tried contacting Oculus? And I mean Oculus directly, you get things resolved quicker. Contacting Facebook does jack and shit from what I have heard.
 
Have you tried contacting Oculus? And I mean Oculus directly, you get things resolved quicker. Contacting Facebook does jack and shit from what I have heard.
Yeah. I opened a support ticket and 3 weeks went by without me hearing anything so I emailed them again saying "just checking in on this, I haven't heard back and I still can't use either of my headsets". They sent me a shitty reply back essentially saying "we're working on it, we're backlogged with support tickets and sending emails like this only make it take longer". I was shocked at how rude they were. Another month went by with no update so I emailed again asking for a status update and they replied saying "After extensive review, it has been determined that your Facebook account cannot be re-enabled as it has previous activity that violated Facebook's Community Standards. This decision is final and cannot be overturned. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we reviewed your account."

Needless to say I'll never buy another Oculus product again.
 
Yeah. I opened a support ticket and 3 weeks went by without me hearing anything so I emailed them again saying "just checking in on this, I haven't heard back and I still can't use either of my headsets". They sent me a shitty reply back essentially saying "we're working on it, we're backlogged with support tickets and sending emails like this only make it take longer". I was shocked at how rude they were. Another month went by with no update so I emailed again asking for a status update and they replied saying "After extensive review, it has been determined that your Facebook account cannot be re-enabled as it has previous activity that violated Facebook's Community Standards. This decision is final and cannot be overturned. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we reviewed your account."

Needless to say I'll never buy another Oculus product again.
Not that you'd want to, I'm sure, but if you made a new FB account, could you connect your Oculus to that? What about if you sold it/gave it to someone else, would they be able to activate it again? Or is the hardware itself tainted, I wonder?
 
My g4 was replaced because of a poor charge port.

Never had the black screen issues.

Also went through 3 batteries.
wow.
If i remember right the reason the 808s were dying is because the "big" cores wigging out. I remember on xda they had custom kernels to disable the "big" cores and only run it on the "LITTLE" cores to get around the bricking issue. it was too late for my V10...
I did find, however, it is possible to extract data from a bricked G4 (oh boy was that fun!)
 
Yeah. I opened a support ticket and 3 weeks went by without me hearing anything so I emailed them again saying "just checking in on this, I haven't heard back and I still can't use either of my headsets". They sent me a shitty reply back essentially saying "we're working on it, we're backlogged with support tickets and sending emails like this only make it take longer". I was shocked at how rude they were. Another month went by with no update so I emailed again asking for a status update and they replied saying "After extensive review, it has been determined that your Facebook account cannot be re-enabled as it has previous activity that violated Facebook's Community Standards. This decision is final and cannot be overturned. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we reviewed your account."

Needless to say I'll never buy another Oculus product again.
Thats their response to everyone. Facebook sucks on an epic level.
 
Not that you'd want to, I'm sure, but if you made a new FB account, could you connect your Oculus to that? What about if you sold it/gave it to someone else, would they be able to activate it again? Or is the hardware itself tainted, I wonder?
I'm sure I could just make a new account or use my wife's account and it'll work but they took all my software. I've had a headset since the CV1 days before they were even owned by Facebook so I probably had close to $400 in games and programs.
 
I'm sure I could just make a new account or use my wife's account and it'll work but they took all my software. I've had a headset since the CV1 days before they were even owned by Facebook so I probably had close to $400 in games and programs.

Jesus, if this ban was genuinely over a sarcastic joke and it was from one violation only I would have escalated the fuck out of this!
 
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I'm sure I could just make a new account or use my wife's account and it'll work but they took all my software. I've had a headset since the CV1 days before they were even owned by Facebook so I probably had close to $400 in games and programs.
This is why we need to stop buying products and services that have subscriptions or need to be linked to an account. That is the only way to show the companies that we don't want this garbage.
 
Jesus, if this ban was genuinely over a sarcastic joke and it was from one violation only I would have escalated the fuck out of this!
You can't. There's nobody to talk to, just like with Google. They have plenty of people to write "ai" looking for undesirable speech, but no customer service to handle stuff like this.
 
Once my Oculus Rift became Facebook active I stopped using, its been put away since and there it will remain until I die.
One less person to get sucked in, fuck them.
 
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Jesus, if this ban was genuinely over a sarcastic joke and it was from one violation only I would have escalated the fuck out of this!
There's no way to escalate it or talk to a real person at Facebook. I'm assuming it was me making fun of Qanon or #StopTheSteal or something. It happened shortly after the riot at the Capitol.
 
I don't know what's dumber. The $25k worth of apps the person purchased on a mobile device, or the fact he's using an Apple product?

This is the only reason I click on Apple threads around here, to see exactly these kinds of comments. It’s humorous, yet as certain to be on [H] as the sun rising in the morning.
 
I'm sure I could just make a new account or use my wife's account and it'll work but they took all my software. I've had a headset since the CV1 days before they were even owned by Facebook so I probably had close to $400 in games and programs.

That sucks, sorry to hear that. You have been one of the unlucky ones though. Oculus support have been very good at getting people's accounts back up and running after a Facebook ban. I know you submitted tickets, but, have you tried their chat support? It's much better. Of course, this will only work if you were banned for the reason you said, something the AI has misunderstood and not for something more serious.

And, just for your information, Facebook has owned Oculus since before the Civ1, they have owned Oculus since 2014. The Civ1 came out in 2016.
 
This is why we need to stop buying products and services that have subscriptions or need to be linked to an account. That is the only way to show the companies that we don't want this garbage.
Not going to happen. Paid subscriptions are being normalize and people are trained to accept them. On the end convince will trump all.
 
For sure! I gotta support anything that tries to bring the market in that direction.

A while back I got a $20 deal for Control that was getting occasional $15 deals sales on epic. Worth it.
I don't buy steam anymore either unless there's no choice
 
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The least Apple could do is tell him why his account was terminated. What's so difficult about that?
I bet they did, just this is all from the perspective of him or his lawyer making him not look bad, and Apple won't publicly say why just for privacy concerns
 
I don't prefer that, and consoles are our last hope to actually own games, unlike you know Steam.
Consoles like the iPhone are walled gardens, and they're walled for a good reason, and it isn't piracy. They're walled to keep the competition out. Sony and Apple have both reminded us that we own nothing and they can take away the stuff we paid for at their whim. Steam is not the same because they don't link their walled garden to your hardware. You don't like Steams business then you just pick up your wallet and go to Epic or GoG or the dozens of other stores you can buy your games on Windows, including the awful Windows Store. You get banned on the Apple store and the hardware you own might as well be a paper weight. Getting banned on your console and you won't be able to buy or play games online.

That's not to say that Steam or the Play Store are saints or anything, but their asshole ways do not extend to hardware. If Steam or Google's Play Store were to ban you then you're just a phone call away from contacting your credit card company and disputing some charges you made. You do not need to use the Google Play Store to use your Android phone. There are plenty of other alternatives to the Google Play Store, including piracy. On iOS based devices you do not have that choice. You can probably operate it as a phone but good luck getting apps.

Sony was ready to remove the store from PS Vita and PS3 owners and you think you truly own games? Good luck playing Demon Souls on the PS3 with multiplayer. As a PC user I can play Demon Souls on the PS3 with multiplayer. Who owns shit now?
 
I have voted with my wallet every step of the way. I wouldn't have bought a new Xbox One after that first announcement that I had to purchase my games digitally. I don't prefer that, and consoles are our last hope to actually own games, unlike you know Steam.

don’t know that I’d call buying physical copies of console games “owning” then these days. Probably all the way back to later Xbox 360 and ps3 games. Once you got to the point where patches and dlc were dependent on the company running the storefront and providing the downloads, it becomes entirely up to MS, Sony, Nintendo as to whether you can still get your games.

I bought the TMNT arcade game release on Xbox 360 when it came out. But then Microsoft or whoever lost the distribution rights for it, so it got pulled from the store. No one could buy it again, and if you deleted the copy you bought, you couldn’t even re-download it. I’m not sure what I bought if that’s the case. It was more like an unlimited term rental that could be revoked at any time.



I’d agree with this. As far as owning digital media goes, it’s got to be a storefront where you can download a copy of whatever it is you’ve purchased - music, movie, game - and then play it without it needing to check in with any kind of service at all. Ever.

so we’ve got various music stores where you get MP3s or Flac files. That’s ownership I think. And sites like GoG for PC games.

there absolutely should be provisions baked into digital storefronts to account for this. If an account can be banned, then that ban should still allow you to log in and access all media you’ve “purchased.” Alternately the company needs to provide you a refund for everything they’ve taken away from you.

more likely they’ll change the terminology and say they’re no longer purchases for ownership but an access fee for a license or some other nonsense, and most people won’t ever notice.

Far as consoles go, I think the last gen where you could say you clearly owned the games were PS2 / GameCube / Xbox. As soon as everything started tying into online services and day one patches for game-breaking bugs became a thing, that was the end.
 
I can understand bans for online cheating, but if you buy content that can be played single player (or movies, music, etc.) it should be yours.

Kind of sucks to pay full price for something and then have it be gone, either by ban or cause the service went bust (Zune, Google Play Music, etc.).

And they put all this DRM inside, which only hurts legit buyers. The pirates get everything anyhow, usually on day one (sometimes even before release) so I don't know why people up top haven't figured this out yet.

Just let us download the files we paid for.
 
Like there is really no way to play Blu-Ray movies on Linux. I recently bought a few movies at Best Buy and I wanted to play on my new Ubuntu setup.

Turns out, there is literally no way. They have locked down the DRM and charge crazy licensing fees that no one wants to pay.

So I ended up having to rip the disc myself, took about 25 minutes, but I was able to watch the movie. It was The New Mutants, pretty cool film.

They claim they want to stop piracy, but you have to become a pirate just to watch the product you paid for.
 
Afa ps and consoles in general, I buy discs when I can, and would backup the digital games if I was capable. Will be when my vita2sd comes in. Online multi is not my thing, so I really don't care about that much. Def use gog when I can, though.

Like there is really no way to play Blu-Ray movies on Linux. I recently bought a few movies at Best Buy and I wanted to play on my new Ubuntu setup.

Turns out, there is literally no way. They have locked down the DRM and charge crazy licensing fees that no one wants to pay.

So I ended up having to rip the disc myself, took about 25 minutes, but I was able to watch the movie. It was The New Mutants, pretty cool film.

They claim they want to stop piracy, but you have to become a pirate just to watch the product you paid for.
It's not "piracy" if you own it, only if you share it (or receive a copy of something you don't own).
 
I wonder but could he perchance have set-up up his account on a new device that he gave to someone (a relative, friend, etc.) that may have abused the ToS? Could they possibly have seen his account logged in and being used in multiple, let's say three locations: Cell, Home, and some other location that's different from the billing address simultaneously (different ISP possibly)? I don't know if any of this is possible, or if that scenario would be a violation of the ToS or if that would even work, then again I don't know the extent of Apple's control or snooping either.

If none of this is this case, I hope he wins.
 
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