Usually your name, another credit card or debit card number (and sometimes its expiration date and CVC number unique to that card). Pretty similar to what you'd put in a web form, or manually enter into a card reader machine if the card's magnetic stripe or chip isn't being read properly.
Usually it can. The person I was replying to asked how someone would pay over the phone, not why. I agree it was an oversight by Apple not to allow online payments.
I ran into something similar trying to get apple support for my MBP. My computer was bricked and I switched from an iPhone to Android years ago. I went to log in to the web portal to request service for my MBP and it sent a 2 factor code to "my iPhone" so I was entirely locked out.
not sure if you're being sarcastic here. It is true that journalistic heat has been known to help re-arrange development priorities, and not being able to pay your bill seems like a potentially significant problem.
That is true however how do we think it works if you loose your credit card ? You would call and cancel. This would be the case most of the time as none is going to trust website to cancel the card. You would need a human intersection here.
IMO you are less likely to loose your phone then credit card. We think of actual physical credit card only when we need to pay with it. 99% of the time it is just sitting in the wallet being all useless. Phone is something we are using every 5 min or more so chances are less that one would loose phone like that. Now if you do loose it, and hopefully it is locked then no one can use your card. However one can just cancel the card by calling it from borrowed phone or something like that.
I think the article's point is that you cannot pay your Apple Card bill, not that you cannot pay any bills. Of course losing something means you cannot use it.
> What if someone loses their phone before Apple “fixes” this?
As the article notes, they'll have the option to call in and pay over the phone like many other banks allow. It's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world.
Borrow someone's phone. Even right now, not all credit cards can be canceled from website. If you loose your wallet and phone then what are your options ?
Actually if I loose my phone, then high probability that I am outside and I am not waiting on going to a website to cancel my card. I would absolutely call them by borrowing someone's phone. How would you do this if you are outside and need to cancel your credit card ? Would you try to go online login to bank website and look for the option to cancel the card or call them ? It is a low priority feature. You will want a human interaction here.
We added an iPad and tried to purchase something, but the only card on file was long since expired and thrown away.
But in order to verify the account we had to enter the card's digits, which we did not have, and we couldn't add a new card because we hadn't verified the old one.
In other words we were stuck. Had to contact Apple support. Took several days to resolve.
Same here. Apple's process for dealing with lost or stolen cards is just insanely stupid. Why in the world do I need to 'validate' the existing card, which I no longer have, in order to add a new one?
What possible security or business justification could exist for that? What does it even mean to 'validate' a card you've been billing successfully for years?
(Spoiler: in case this happens to anyone else, the secret turns out to be disabling family sharing on the account. It will then let you remove the old card and add a new one, after which you can re-enable family sharing.)
Could you go into an Apple store to pay it? I imagine they could at least lend you a phone, but I think you can pay most store and bank issues cards at retail locations.
While I understand the point of the article, "no insecure web portal" is not, I think, as big a detriment as the author suggests. (The author doesn't say the 'insecure' part, but we're talking about banks' web pages, so I think practical experience allows us to fill it in.)
