An Apple fan who has spent “nearly 30 years as a loyal customer” says they’ve been “permanently” locked out of their Apple Account due to what might be the overzealous actions of Apple’s automated anti-fraud system. It’s left them locked out of “20 years of digital life,” and it all started with the seemingly straightforward purchase of an Apple gift card.

I’ve been an Apple customer for 35 years. Had an Apple account as long as Apple has had such things. A few years ago (specifically, when Apple started retiring 32-bit apps from the App Store) I saw where Apple was going and created a dedicated account for my Apple ID that’s separate from the one I use for my contact for Apple services. If Apple locked me out of my account today, I’d lose access to 14 years of app purchases on that account. That’s about it? And at some point I started using an alternative ID for some of my purchases, so I’d only lose access to some of them. And of course, I now keep copies of everything backed up, since they could vanish from Apple’s servers at any time.

You seem a bit dependent on a single provider. Maybe not putting your eggs in one basket might be better… Or two baskets, as it were, with eggs from the same chicken.

Apple is the only provider of Apple IDs. Other yhan that, I’m not sure what gave you the impression I’m dependent on a single provider?

I’ve been an Apple customer for 35 years. Had an Apple account as long as Apple has had such things. If Apple locked me out of my account today, I’d lose access to 14 years of app purchases on that account. That’s about it? No reason.

That means they are only depending on apple for the one thing only apple provides, which is app purchases on the Apple platform. Everything else they have locally or backed up somewhere else. It’s literally their point that they’re independent despite having used the platform for so long.