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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

On another note my experience with customer service on the Apple card is absolutely abysmal. My card was locked on Monday probably because I'm traveling in Europe and that flagged some fraud detection algorithm. With any of my other cards I could resolve this in minutes with a quick SMS or at worst a phone call. Instead I'm still waiting for a call back from a representative that was promised to come no later than Wednesday.

I guess I'll add this to the growing list of recent Apple products that look nice but are overdesigned and under engineered and functionally inferior to the competition.

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Oh god yes. I got mine a couple of weeks ago and almost immediately experienced the worst customer service ever from a bank (and that’s saying something). I was considered documenting my story and sending to The Verge or something, because they’d eat this up on launch day, but ultimately my laziness and lack of free time prevailed.

The short version is that it was similar to yours. Half my transactions were declined for suspected fraud. Most of the time I was able to approve them and retry, but when I booked a non refundable hotel stay in Europe and then had it cancelled on me a couple of days later, the serious downward spiral started. Their chat support was completely incompetent and after literally promising me (I have it in writing, the only good thing about chat support) that I would have no more problems with the card, the next day it was deactivated. Nobody I dealt with ever seemed to understand the concept of fixing a problem, they just kept repeating vague statements about protecting me, without ever addressing my desire to use my card to pay for things, which seemed like the whole point when I signed up for it.

I’ve since given up on it for anything other than buying slurpees at the convenience store.

I was going to suggest destroying the card in a fit of anger, but that won't be easy - titanium is rather strong.

I hear leather and vinyl are good places to start.

It's still pretty thin, no? Should be possible to bend it relatively easy at least.

I tried, I couldn't easily bend it.

You're holding it wrong... :)

Use tools, the simplest thing coming to mind being shoving one end in a sturdy crack and then pushing the body of the card over.

Will it blend?

You can burn it FYI

> After literally promising me ... that I would have no more problems with the card, the next day it was deactivated.

I mean, you can't have any more problems with a service you don't have!

It has failed him for the last time.

> overdesigned

Underdesigned in this case. When thinking in terms of "designed to fail" this is seriously egregious. Having the most expensive phone with every useless widget you can throw in is one thing, but being forced to show off a shiny but pathetically impossible to maintain product because it would simply break if handled normally is really stretching it to the limits.

This is an example of X-Megacorp making a shitty product and then blaming the consumer for not being willing or able to keep it as a status symbol.

That's why we have so many "awesome" phones out there with cracked up screens. Look around and you can't miss them. Shit products at a premium, when the "lesser" models are clearly better.

>being forced to show off a shiny but pathetically impossible to maintain product because it would simply break if handled normally is really stretching it to the limits.

What product are you referring to?

Touché. I didn't even realize in being so specific about one product, I pretty much encapsulated all of Apple's current products.

My ancient Mac Pro has been awesome, and outlasted the PeeCees I got in the same time period and since, except for one Dell that seems to be a serious overachiever.

My Gen 2 iPod Touch still works, while none of my subsequent iPhones or iPod/iPads do, despite their increasing prettiness.

Every apple device I've purchased outside those two devices have been terrible in terms of quality. They were all awesome on purchase day, but quickly downhill thereafter. Every. one.

For example (I have a few, but will just stick to one), I cannot get over how bad Apple keyboards are. Just look at them the wrong way with a damp cleaning rag in your hand, and they'll never work properly again. Clearly designed to be tossed once they yellow. Meanwhile I have PeeCee keyboards from Y2K era that work just fine and are easily cleaned.

I have this one USB keyboard from an old Power Mac that I treat dearly because it has outlasted the hell out of every other Mac keyboard I've ever owned. They've been the worst keyboards I've ever experienced. No tactile feature or pseudo-technical salespitch makes any one of them a good deal.

The icon markings on that keyboard don't even match what the OS does with them anymore, but I won't part with it as long as I have an Apple computer that needs a keyboard, because the prospect of getting yet another one of their newer models is simply not worth it.

Phew.

Thanks for your comment. It made me laugh and then instantly come face to face with regret.

> USB keyboard from an old Power Mac that I treat dearly because it has outlasted the hell out of every other Mac keyboard I've ever owned

Let me recommend the Macintosh keyboards from the late 1980s (M0116 and M0115). 30 years later most of them (if they weren’t scrapped sometime) are still working just fine, and are very pleasant to use. The Alps SKCM keyswitches used can get a bit scratchy feeling if they have been sitting out in a dusty place for 20 years, but even in mediocre condition are nicer (and more electrically robust/reliable) than any keyswitches sold at scale today. To get these keyboards requires some kind of ADB -> USB protocol converter, but those aren’t too hard to find.

The various rubber dome USB Mac keyboards sold from 2000–2005 are cheap garbage by comparison.

Eh, Alps SKCM are nice, but buckling springs are better, and still produced by Unicomp.

Also, it's kind of a renaissance of keyboard switches right now. Kaihua is putting out some interesting designs.

They're nicer than _any_ keyswitches sold today? That seems hard to believe, are you excluding so-called mechanical switches? There's a wide variety of those out there today, and even just sticking to Cherry MX and knockoffs, they're _quite_ pleasant and there's a variety of feels, sounds, travel distances, etc. available. It's really quite a nice time to be a typist.

Alps are mechanical switches, and they're still used in some modern keyboards. Vintage Apple Alps keyboards go for quite a bit on eBay.

Sure, it's just I personally find the current quite extreme variety of keyboard switches gives a lot of room for preference. It seems surprising that you'd have to go back that far to find something ideal.

I mean if you like them best, certainly your prerogative, just found it interesting.

Alps SKCM switches have not been used in anything new in the past 2.5 decades.

There are some other similarly nice keyboard switches from the 1980s and early 90s (and some nicer ones from the 70s; keyboards have generally been on a steady decline for the past 40–50 years, as cost cutting dominated other considerations). None still sold in large numbers today.

Cherry MX are much less pleasant, IMO, and also not nearly so electrically reliable. (The Alps SKCM contact mechanism is much more complicated and better sealed. They have an extremely clean electrical signal.)

There was a much bigger variety of available keyboard switches in the 1980s than today.

They have chat via Messages on the phone, and it worked great for me the one question I had. Go to Wallet app > Apple Card > ..., then tap "Message"

I guess if you've had an issue that requires a voice call, though, that wouldn't matter. But I was able to resolve my issue in about 2 minutes via iMessages, which was a zillion times better than when I've had to deal with PNC.

Yeah I started there. I was given a phone number to call, which I called. I was then told somebody would call me to resolve the issue within two days. Five days later I haven't heard a peep. Thankfully I'm not relying on the card for anything important.

This just confirms my feeling lately that I can't afford to be locked into their ecosystem.

Sheesh. I've taken the same approach though, I still use my normal CCs for almost every transaction, just wanted to see what Apple Card was all about.

The fact that it doesn't have a web interface or any way I can tie it into my financial reporting services/apps is a major turn-off.

I'm hoping that's temporary but for now I'm just using the card for Apple purchases and gas stations.

That blows my mind, for potential fraud, "We'll call you within two days".

My bank is the opposite, they block my card and -don't- notify me until I call in because I notice it. I hate it, but they say that's "for my security".

I had a PayPal charge get flagged as potential fraud yesterday. It had a push notification and the ability to flag it as legit in the Wallet app, after which I was able to re-submit the charge successfully.

I suspect only certain levels or types of potential fraud get the "call us" approach.

I've had similarly poor customer service regarding Apple IDs recently. Something on Apple's side is preventing Apple IDs from being created with emails at my employer's primary domain, and after being bounced between a half-dozen support people, Apple's guidance so far has been "we can give you a 30 day whitelist which you can use to create a whole bunch of Apple IDs" or "have employees create Apple IDs with their personal emails that don't yet have Apple IDs and then change the email to a company one".

Hmm... when I had transactions rejected, I would get a notification on my phone, would see the transaction in the Wallet app, confirm that it was legit, and repeat. Never had to talk with customer service in the first place.

Is that not what's happening with your card?

No. I was bounced into iMessage support, which gave me a number to call. After a few minutes on the phone with a real person I was told I'd have to wait up to days for somebody to call me back (while I'm traveling in Europe) to resolve it.

Six days later I'm still waiting.

That's interesting, because last year I called up Visa to tell them I was going to Europe, and they told me they don't need to be notified of that anymore, and my card would work fine.

Perhaps different CC providers have different policies, or maybe this is some Apple thing?

Yes, the trend is to not requiring notification, but different CC providers do have different policies.

I had this a few years back, but their explanation made a lot of sense: "even if you tell us, we're going to apply exactly the same fraud detection algorithms anyway."

10 years ago I traveled to china. 8 and 6 years ago I traveled to russia. In all cases, I used my standard credit card for most stuff. No issues at all, and I didn't tell the bank beforehand.

5 years ago - months after the last russia trip, I used the same card to buy a small service from a company in sweden. I'd bought multiple times before - same service, same company for many years - and this was... $9?

Transaction flagged - entire account frozen, without warning or notification (no call or email or text) - marked as 'fraudulent activity'. Without telling me what was going on, several auto payments were declined over the next few days, and it took hours to sort everything out.

Absolutely no rhyme nor reason I can see as to how 'fraud detection' is done.

Security policies must be changing all the time due to changes in fraud patterns. The $9 transaction getting flagged in a different country isn’t a surprise anymore since banks figure out that fraudsters “test” credit card numbers with small transactions and then sell that to others (for more fraud) or use for larger fraudulent transactions. This doesn’t explain why the same transactions from the past weren’t taken into account, but must be related to this fraud pattern having a higher weight in flagging transactions.

I've been traveling all over Asia for most of the last ten years. At least a few times a year one of my cards gets flagged by some algorithm. I can resolve this almost instantly with my Capitol One card via an SMS or the app. Or I can call my back to have my debit cards unblocked in max 10 minutes.

My Apple card has been blocked for almost a week now and all I'm getting is automated responses.

You can just text them using iMessage... I've gotten my questions answered in less than 30 seconds through that.

The Wallet app redirected me to iMessage support, which then asked me to call a phone number, which led to somebody on the phone that told me to wait for a call back. Six days later I'm still waiting.

why would you choose to be a part of apples financial services beta test group?

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