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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

If the reddit poster is in the US this is perfect for a small claims court claim. No lawyer, just file and show up and most likely win even if Apple sends someone to contest it.

Then if they don't pay judgement you can literally go to the Apple store with a sheriff and take things off the shelf up to the value of your claim. Or take one of the display tables.

THAT would get Apple's attention.

One of my favorite events from the (horrible) Great Financial Crisis was a case of this: the winner of a claim against one of the big banks (I think it was a bogus foreclosure, or some fees or something) couldn't get the bank to cough up, so they walked into a branch with the sheriff and just started removing furniture. Got a lot of attention in the press and then in the Florida Legislature.

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> One of my favorite events from the (horrible) Great Financial Crisis was a case of this: the winner of a claim against one of the big banks (I think it was a bogus foreclosure, or some fees or something) couldn't get the bank to cough up, so they walked into a branch with the sheriff and just started removing furniture.

Yup, he walked out with a check that same day too.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclo...

Highlights:

> The Florida incident arose when the bank foreclosed on Warren and Maureen Nyerges of Golden Gate Estates in Naples. This surprised the Nyerges, since they had no mortgage--not with BofA or with anybody else. They had paid cash for their home in 2009.

> Finally he hired an attorney. Two months later, the foreclosure had been dismissed.

> Nyerges then sought to recover his attorney's fees, and got a judgment against the bank. Five more months passed: more phone calls, more letters; no payment. Nyerges went back to court and got a writ of execution, which gave him permission to seize bank assets in payment for his judgment.

> On June 3, Nyerges, two sheriff's deputies and a moving truck showed up at the local BofA branch. The deputies informed the manager that he could either pay the Nyerges' legal fees— $2,500—or the movers would start taking away the bank's furniture and cash. The manager, after conferring with his superiors, gave the deputies a check.

> Bank of America later apologized to the Nyerges in writing--but managed to misspell their name.

The TOS you agree to when you create an iCloud account say they can close your account and that you are not entitled to refunds for purchases you've made when they do this. What does going to court accomplish?

TOS do not negate your rights. They often contain unenforceable (i.e., incorrect, illegal) provisions. Part of their purpose is to muddy the waters for the consumer, convincing them that they do not have the rights they do.

Many ToS have many illegal parts.

Repeat after me: You cannot:

... contract away... / ... agree away... / ... accept ToS away...

... your legal protections & ... any law

Illegal ToS are literally scary stories to scare people, but if any part of that ToS goes against laws/ your rights, then that part is null and void.

Courts often have cases where a ToS section or section of a contract is not legally enforceable, and the court simply sets that aside as if it never existed.

This wouldn’t be any of that though; you absolutely can “contract away” your Apple account and everything attached to it.

This revenge fantasy is not in any way real; Apple can for sure do what they did here.

Don't take anything with a computer chip in it, Apple can iCloud lock it.

As for if they would blatantly reject the sovereignty of their host country by locking legally stolen property, who knows. We've been sleepwalking into anarcho-capitalism for decades.

> Don't take anything with a computer chip in it, Apple can iCloud lock it.

if they did that, could you take them to small claims court?

I don’t see why not — it’d be something you lawfully owned.

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