A New Yorker is suing Apple, claiming the company double billed him for an iTunes music purchase and then refused to offer a refund, citing its own Terms of Service — and if he gets his way, it will become a class action.
Justia.com is reporting that New York resident Robert Herskowitz is all fired up at Apple and the iTunes Store, which he claims charged his account twice for the same song. After finding no love with iTunes support, he’s decided to sue the company and is now seeking class-action status for his lawsuit.
As soon as Herskowitz found the duplicate charge, he claims to have contacted iTunes support. The following day, he received a response — but it certainly wasn’t the one he was hoping for.
“Your request for a refund for ‘Whataya Want from Me’ was carefully considered; however, according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all purchases made on the iTunes Store are ineligible for refund,” the email reply reads. “This policy matches Apple’s refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials.”
Herskowitz’s questionable taste in music aside (Adam Lambert — really?!), our own experience with the iTunes Store has been quite the opposite. For example, while playing around with the remote for a first-generation Apple TV, our toddler mistakenly purchased the entire Jaime Foxx album “Best Night of My Life” (yeah, kids don’t have the best taste in music, either) — but thankfully, Apple refunded the charge to our credit card after we explained the situation.
What about you, MacLife.com reader? Any issues with being double-billed or getting a refund for accidental purchases? Sound off in the comments!
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When I last posted five days ago, we’d raised 4 for DonorsChoose from 16 awesome people. As of right now, ,583 has been donated by 26 people, to projects that will reach 2,308 students in classrooms around the country. And since our checkout code MACLIFE will match any donation up to 0, people have been inspired to give big — keep it up, and don’t forget to enter the code!
We’ve even given to 11 different projects that are now complete, including the awesome Lego Robotics one that was bonus-prize eligible. (If you want to feel warm and fuzzy, click on any of those and read the grateful acknowledgements from the teachers. It’s easy to see how much they care about giving their kids the best educational experiences they can.)
So we need another bonus prize project! Everyone who gives to this First Graders Love to Read! project will be entered for both the general prize drawing at the end of the month AND a separate drawing for a iTunes Gift Card.
Whaaa? Prizes? Yes, be sure to watch for the email receipt you get from DonorsChoose (for the First Graders Love to Read project or anything on our Giving Page), then forward it to susie at maclife.com to be entered. You could win Mac software, games from Aspyr, a 30GB SugarSync account, a Griffin Helo TC remote control helicopter, a Withings Smart Blood Pressure Monitor, Spark headphones by ID America, the Fling Mini controller for iPhone gaming from Ten One Design, and more.
Our drive only runs five more days — until May 1. (I must receive your entries by May 1 at 9:00am Pacific, which is when the drawing is going down.) So take a minute right now and donate to a project on our Giving Page.
I’m so proud of how much good we’ve done for public school kids through DonorsChoose so far. Thank you so much for being so generous — and don’t forget to enter MACLIFE at checkout to have your donation (up to 0) matched, for double the impact!
Don’t forget the code!
Any questions? Check out the FAQ, or just send an email to susie at maclife.com. Happy giving! And matching! And winning!
iTunes in the Cloud got way cooler with the launch of the new iPad last month, when Apple announced that movies could now be re-downloaded from any device using your iCloud account. Unfortunately, HBO restrictions held Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox back from joining the party — but progress is finally being made.
AppleInsider reported over the weekend that feature films released from Universal Pictures have quietly become part of iTunes in the Cloud’s new ability to re-download from any device logged into a user’s iCloud account. That leaves 20th Century Fox as the only major studio sitting on the sidelines, despite a recent report that HBO restrictions preventing the studio from participating have been lifted.
“Universal and Fox were initially absent from iCloud as a result of content deals with premium cable network HBO, though those issues were resolved last month,” the report reveals. “Universal Pictures films became available this weekend on iCloud, and users who have previously purchased the films from iTunes can re-download them at no cost.
“While Universal’s films are now available through iCloud, customers looking to re-download 20th Century Fox must still wait for that content, even though HBO was said last month to have reached an agreement,” the report continues. “The Wall Street Journal said at the time that Fox expected to have its content on iCloud ‘within weeks,’ suggesting it may not be a much longer wait.”
iTunes in the Cloud allows users to not only re-download movies they have purchased from iTunes, but also Digital Copy content from iTunes which is included with many Blu-ray and DVD discs these days. Rather than having to store gigabyte-plus files on your local hard drive, iTunes users can simply delete the file after viewing and have the ability to download it again later, from either iTunes on a Mac or PC or any iOS device running iOS 5 or later.
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Apple continues to roll out some minor software updates this week, including iTunes 10.6.1 which should give some much needed relief to TV show fans — and developers are also basking in the glow of a new OS X 10.7.4 seed, assuming they aren’t busy tweaking their apps for Mountain Lion already.
Apple released iTunes 10.6.1 for both Mac and Windows on Wednesday night, addressing four nagging issues that users have been experiencing since installing iTunes 10.6 earlier this month.
The “number of improvements” included with iTunes 10.6.1 are:
- Fixes several issues that may cause iTunes to unexpectedly quit while playing videos, changing artwork size in Grid view, and syncing photos to devices.
- Addresses an issue where some iTunes interface elements are incorrectly described by VoiceOver and WindowEyes.
- Fixes a problem where iTunes may become unresponsive while syncing iPod nano or iPod shuffle.
- Resolves an ordering problem while browsing TV episodes in your iTunes library on Apple TV.
iTunes 10.6.1 is available now via Software Update or Apple’s support downloads website, although at this writing the Mac link still points to 10.6 for some reason.
Developers also get a treat nearly two weeks after receiving their first beta to OS X 10.7.4, with 9to5Mac reporting that a second build numbered 11E35 has hit the web and includes “no known issues” at this time. Be that as it may, developers have been asked to focus their attention on the App Store, graphics, iCal, Mail and QuickTime just the same.
The OS X 10.7.4 beta is only available to registered Mac developers for now, but judging from the lack of ongoing issues, we’ll probably see this one downloading to the public at large sooner than later.
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You’ve got to hand it to criminals — sometimes, the tricks they come up with to dupe folks out of money is just amazingly clever. For example, the case of a gang of 11 in England who used stolen credit cards to buy their own unknown music from iTunes and Amazon and score big on royalty payments.
BBC News England is reporting that a clever scam involving stolen credit cards and royalty payments has been shut down after a gang of 11 young men from Kent, Derby, Birmingham and Wolverhamption were finally caught.
According to the report, the 24-year-old ringleader of the group purchased 24 identical laptops, then obtained “thousands of stolen or compromised credit card details,” recruiting his young friends to log into iTunes and Amazon and buy music from unknown artists.
Credit card theft aside, what exactly is the point of this crime? As it turns out, the unknown artists in question were none other than music created by the gang itself, who in turn were cashing in on royalty payments of £500,000 over a span of nearly a year and half, between January, 2008 and June, 2009.
Unfortunately for the criminals, the royalty payments triggered an alarm with Apple, who noted “they were paying royalties to what appeared to be utterly unknown artists in the Wolverhampton area at a rate they expect to pay to someone like Madonna.”
According to the report, iTunes and Amazon have racked up losses “between £750,000 and £1m” as a result of the scam, which sent five members to jail, one to a youth offenders institution and the remainder serving non-custodial sentences; two others were cleared of any wrongdoing.
So hey, aspiring musicians! We had this great idea for selling your music on iTunes…
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(Image courtesy of The Guardian)
