PayPal User Charged $4,000 for Mac OS X Lion Download | Hacker News Reader

PayPal User Charged $4,000 for Mac OS X Lion Download

pcmag.com

37 pointsolegious31 comments

sounds familiar: When I wanted to upgrade a SL Server and I already had a Lion client license, the App Store told me that I also need the Server License and whether I wanted to buy it.

That made sense like this and I said yes.

This gave me an error 500 and the recommendation to try again.

And again

I got suspicious when the App Store told me that my credit card was declined and low and behold: Yes. Every error 500 charged me with a Lion client and a Lion server license until my Credit Card company's fraud detection locked my card.

The App Store has shown 7 instances of Lion and 6 instances of Lion Server in the purchased tab, but neither "Install" button actually worked (error 500).

To their credit, they refunded the purchases, but not without telling me in their ticket response that this is a very generous exception they are making this one time and that all app store purchases are final.

I guess they are just not quite there where they should be to sell an OS over only electronic means.

> this is a very generous exception they are making this one time and that all app store purchases are final

Statements like this make me very glad I live in a country where such declarations are automatically fiction.

This can't be legal in many places. It certainly isn't here in the EU, and I find it hard to believe that most (if not all) US states don't have consumer protection regulations that cover this.

If the error is due to a fault in the system the customer should not be punished for that error.

I'm not an iStuff user at all at the moment, but would consider an iDevice if it were ever the right tool for the job at the right price. If they are going to try make the customers pay for faults like this (forcing the customer to know and quote relevant law/regulations to get the right thing done) then my attitude will move to never touching an iProduct for as long as I live and recommending friends/family/other take a similar stance.

In most situations you can just tell your bank to block the transaction and that's the end of it. If you have a bank worth a damn.

I don't mean just from a fault perspective - if I buy something online in general I can get a refund later if I merely change my mind (although I don't know if this applies to purely digital purchases). In the UK, most of the times you see "No refunds", the sign in question has zero effect.

Ok so the problem here is not that there is a bug in the payment processing. That shouldn't happen, but it does. The problem is that neither of these multi-billion dollar companies cares about this customer enough to suck up a $4000 error until it gets straightened out.

I've been a long time customer of both Apple and PayPal. It seems like Apple did eventually refund the purchases, although I would have expected them to do it faster. PayPal, on the other hand, literally does not give a shit about you or the fact that you can't eat until your transaction goes through their absurdly slow system.

Ever notice that Bank of America's ATMs can scan and process a check and give you money in 10 seconds, but PayPal takes 10 days?

To be fair, everything in the banking & money transfer world takes 2-3 days, and Paypal acts as a middleman, so an in => out would take 4-6 (business) days.

The only reason Bank of America's ATM gives you cash on the spot is it scans the check, "thinks" it is good, and BoA credits you cash. Paypal is not in the business of crediting anyone anything, not in the least because anybody can sign up for an account with almost no identification.

The 2-3 day wait isn't the case in the UK anymore. UK banks - under pressure from the government via the Office of Fair Trading - now process money transfers in half a day.

The point is that the transfer never required that long to process, but if a Bank (or PayPal) can hold on to your money for a few extra days then it's a few more days of interest on the money for them.

http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/faster_payments_service/backgro...

In the US they also hold it that long so that if you overdraft they can retroactively reorder your transactions largest first so that you will get the maximum number of overdraft fees.

I get how that works, but how come when you write a check at the supermarket, they can verify whether or not it's good in a few seconds?

I have never seen them do that. Where do you live that such a thing is possible?

Anywhere in the US, it's possible, and most likely other countries too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_verification_service "Account current status verification"

None of those methods actually clear a check as valid. They check the past history of the account, or check whether the account is valid, but none actually check if the check will clear when cashed.

I didn't realise Apple accepted PayPal, when did they get this integration?

The problem must be on Apple's side anyway. I was lucky and only got charged trice and I did not use Paypal, just my App Store account. I hope to get extra charges back without doing anything, because technically money are still on my CC account just "frozen". After some time they are "unfrozen" automatically if merchant does not claim them. I see Apple already took it's share (I had three entries with the same amount, now only two are left) so the rest should stay in the account and be unfrozen in a few days. Still not funny.

In the US? 2005.

Wow.. Apple, you go, sometimes, a little too far in giving us "the user experience".

502 it went through, 504 try once more.

That's a reddit failure, not some kind of global rule.

PCmag.com = FoxNews of online reporting.

Slightly similar to this: I recently jailbroke my iPad 2 and installed a cracked application through installous. When you do that, legitimate updates to your cracked applications appear in the app store. Somehow, through some sort of bug, I was actually charged for the app when I accidentally clicked "update all" in the app store. It never asked me for my password (possibly because I had input it recently enough) or asked for a confirmation on the purchase. I didn't even notice it had been purchased until the iTunes receipt came in my email the next day.

So they actually made you pay for a paid app that is installed on your iPad and that you updated through their system. Big deal!

That's hardly a bug of Apple, in my opinion. Installous should be hiding the cracked applications better, it's their bug. Maybe ask for a refund for Installous?

The bug is that it didn't ask me to confirm before putting a charge on my account. Normally, if you try to update an app that hasn't been purchased on your account, it will give an error that the discounted price is not available on your account because you haven't purchased the app.

This is most certainly not a big in Installous. Have you used Installous? All it is is a collection of links to cracked .ipa's that people upload to free file-sharing sites.

Piracy is not justification.You should not pirate apps in first place. you are breaking law here.

Now since you were using the app & enjoying all its benefits -- its developers are full rights to get paid for their labour & hard work.

So because he stole the app, the developer is allowed to steal money from him? What kind of logic is that?

The developer didn't steal anything. At most, Apple did. But there's probably wording in the agreement about services for payment and Apple taking the payment. Their reasoning likely being he took the service, so they took the money.

Legal? Probably not, but he has no recourse. But it reminds me of when people call the cops and say "arrest that person; they stole my drugs!"

I'm not demanding recourse, and I'm not even saying that I am justified in pirating an app. However, I often pirate apps to try them, and the vast majority that I try are terrible, and I uninstall them almost immediately. Therefore, legality aside, I'm not ethically concerned that I'm "stealing" potential revenue from the app developer if I only use their app for 5 minutes.

My point is, this was definitely a bug in the app store, because before any charge there should be a clear modal confirmation dialog (and there normally is).

Honestly I've got no problem with what you did. I'm just saying that they probably covered themselves in the legalese.

For instance, my cable company recently shut off my Internet due to excessive DMCA complaints. They told me they had a "four strike" policy. They cut me after three. I could threaten a lawsuit, even if it would be silly, but that would potentially open me up for other legal attacks, so I'm forced to walk away.

So all I'm saying is that they got you in a tight spot, and they've probably paid enough lawyers to make sure they're covered. Their hardware detected software, so they charged you for it. I find it hard to imagine they haven't written it up to cover themselves.

That's bogus. "Piracy is not justification" doesn't make any sense. What am I trying to justify? I was pointing out a clear bug in the app store: under no circumstances should an unsolicited and unconfirmed charge appear on my account.

My pirating an app does not give Apple the right to charge my account without asking me. Apple's the one that I trusted my credit card info with, and it's their responsibility to not put any unexpected and unsolicited charges on it. I'm not even trying to justify piracy or say it's okay.

Regardless of your opinion on piracy, I'm surprised by this sentiment. Are you and the other commenters suggesting that any time you pirate any software or media, it's justifiable for some third party to charge your account for the price of that item? If I download a torrent of thousands of iPhone apps, should I immediately be charged thousands of dollars, whether or not I even use the apps?

So, they made you pay for what you should have paid for in the first place. This may be a bug, but I'd rather say karma ;).

That's a rather cavalier response when a major company like Apple, which I've trusted with my credit card information, has a bug in their software which can cause unsolicited charges to be made.

The app was only $5, and it's decent enough that I might have used it frequently (in which case I would have bought it anyway). That's not my point. The point is the bug (or at best, the "unexpected behavior") exists and involves actual money. I disagree with these commenters that are justifying this bug simply because it was revealed due to piracy.

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