I'm also not sure why the author didn't follow up: not following up has the direct consequence of being charged a substantial amount of money.
The linkage between the card and the account doesn't actually seem important here. They locked the account that the unpaid iPhone was set up with. Why would Apple continue to provide service to an account that was being used by a device that was effectively partially stolen from them?
Moreover, cars are much more easily repossessed than phones and laptops.
Society has decided that defaulting on a car loan is not equivalent to stealing a car. This is why you can still go to jail for the latter even though debtor's prisons were abolished.
> Moreover, cars are much more easily repossessed than phones and laptops.
Sure, let's go that route instead. Should they be able to repossess your paid-off Corolla because you defaulted on payments for your Camry?
The problem is that Apple didn't just disable these services on the device he didn't pay for. They disabled them even on the devices he did pay for.
> Should your Corolla's cloud based gps routing stop working when you break your contract with Toyota over your Camry? Arguably yes. The car didn't default on the loan, you did. You broke your contract, why would you expect the other party to continue allowing you to be their customer?
Because the contract says what happens if you default, and that isn't one of the things it says.
Moreover, you sign a contract when you agree to the terms of the purchase, as well as the trade in. None of this is a surprise.
Across the board, the author didn't read.
I’ve personally experienced two occasions where iPhones have been stolen in transit by FedEx personnel — one vanished and one, bound for an Apple repair facility in Pennsylvania, was delivered to a residential address a few miles from my city.
In neither case was Apple aware, which was surprising to me as they typically have their shit together. I only realized there was an issue on the one occasion where they were going to charge me for a replacement device, and checking the tracking indicated the phone was delivered to a stay at home mom. The whole process must be outsourced to a meh contractor, and insurance cleans up the mess.