Apple ID deactivated with no reason given

Holy cow, this just literally happened to me as well. Everything you said sounds like a carbon copy of my situation and conversations. I’ve done absolutely ZERO to violate their terms. I have sensitive work info in the cloud and am very upset. I just don’t know what to do

I just had this about a week ago. I attempted to contact Apple three times.

First time they said they would submit a reactivate request. Then a few days later I got an email saying the request was denied. Log-in message would turn from "Apple ID is inactive" so something like "Apple ID and password is incorrect".

Second time I messaged online and they said need to call in person. I call in person and they said they need overseas department for this.

Third time I called just now, they said actually no one has the information to the reason why it is blocked/deactivated/removed. She said this type of inactivation was a system automated flag and action, and all she can do is to note to her leader/ superiors my frustration and feedback to improve the system.

It is aboslutely bull, I paid for some apps and programs I use daily, why you could just suddenly take them away from me. What is wrong with your company?? Someone needs to come out and answer.

It is an ongoing problem , I had called them , they re-activated, then disabled it again. The customer service advised me to log out from Apple ID , then create a new one , try to back up your phone to the new Apple ID, guess what happened? They disabled my new Apple ID too. No explanation, no reason, just banning me from App Store , even cannot update my apps , I had my first account for 10 years never did anything wrong. There should be a class action against Apple for prohibiting consumer with no basis from accessing the App Store, this is getting out of hand.

Hi,

I just had the same situation. Contact support can not help anything, just emailed the security department, asking me to wait 24h. But 24 hours after receiving the email, the reply is still "not eligible for reactivation". No reason, just said to disable my account, now a lot of my precious documents on icloud are likely to be lost, my 5 devices can't log in either. A bad experience. Hope someone can help me

Well I think if Apple is willing to give a reason to why accounts are removed without any notice and chances for appeal, then I think it will prevent users from doing those things. As for creating accounts, that may be a reason but also might not, as it is not an explanation given by Apple. You see why the non-communication is a problem?

While what you say is true and is appreciated, you are digressing and as a result this discussion is running in circles.

Reports can be found over the internet for example this one describes an account initially disabled 3 year ago (https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/s/9uV8uUzsFg),with exact reasons unknown and up to user’s own speculations to this very day.

These issues have always led users to Apple Support as a first step. This issues have been reported to Apple every time users face the same treatment. Apple didn’t give any reasons even after over these years meaning they do not plan to address or release explanations, hence affected users asking on here and hoping to prevent another unforeseen loss of data in the future.

Telling us to speculate reasons and avoid all potential scenarios and subsequently telling us to contact Apple are both ineffective suggestions as those have proven above already not to be solutions to the problem, with respect.

Again, your response and time are nonetheless highly appreciated .

Exact same thing

I had a problem it was deactivated two months ago and I got it fixed. I wasn’t doing anything weird with my phone I’m not a telemarketer, etc. light usage. Work Construction as an employee not a salesman. My account was just deactivated for no reason, and after six hours on and off the phone, they told me at Tech Support the decision was above them, and I should just create a new account. I struggled and got the photos off my phone but I have no way to transfer the text messages and I had to copy my notes on one to Google Keep.

I had planned to start using Numbers and Apple office products, but now I’m going back to Google and looking forward to 2 1/2 years when I get another android phone! This was a nightmare!!!

You would need to check what you are doing to generate a need to create an ID so many times. I have had one ID for 20 years and no issue. Apple may have security and fraud flags set up so you are probably doing something to trigger those. Determine what behavior may be triggering those and stop doing it.

You also don't need to buy lots of iPhones except you are right, Apple does limit the number of IDs that can be created on an iPhone in one year. Use a computer to create more or just wait until the limit is erased again.

Basically there is nothing anybody posting to this forum can do to help you. We are simply other users like yourself, not people who work for Apple or have special connections. Apart from what is included in the user documentation we don't know anything more. We could speculate but that is prohibited by the terms of use of the forum. Since I have never had an account closed I can't even provide information about my experience. Apple can be highly secretive. It can be very frustrating but that's the way they do things. The only thing you can do is provide feedback to them and see if you can encourage them to change how they do things. Posting on this forum won't really help since Apple doesn't really monitor it for this kind of feedback (they do monitor it for topics which aren't really technical Q&A stuff though).

I know that most people don't sit down and read find print. Understandable, but when you do then you can see pearls about a company's position on things.

Legal - iCloud - Apple

Legal - Apple Media Services - Apple

You're talking to somebody who still buys all their music on CDs, gets DVDs from the library, only had a handful of free apps (and no subscriptions, so I have no payment methods with Apple) on an inherited iPhone (an old SE), and all my computers have been secondhand. I think the only thing I bought from Apple itself was a Snow Leopard DVD 10 years ago (got the last copy of the server edition which it took them 10 minutes to find). I use iCloud but only the free part, and since I have almost nothing on my iPhone I can get by with 5 GB free iCloud. I transfer all photos to my other drives every dozen or so I take. I don't really need to have them with me all of the time. I like using Apple equipment, but if something were to happen to my account or equipment (apart from my backup drives which I keep in multiple copies in safe places) I am pretty insulated from the effects. Of course you have to accept doing things a certain way but I am not of the generation with a cellphone surgically embedded at the end of my arm.

Apple Support Communities is set up as an end-user to end-user technical issue support service (i.e., users like you helping other users). Feedback for Apple will likely get more attention if you send it using: Product Feedback - Apple

MarcC_IT wrote:

which sometimes means that we can easily go over the limit on individual devices.

You are referring to something different from the issue of accounts being deleted (and the subject of this thread).

A message saying, "The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone" or, "This iPhone has been used to create/setup too many new Apple IDs" is discussed in the support document: If you see a Could Not Create Apple ID or Could Not Set Up iCloud message - Apple Support

The people on this forum are almost exclusively users like you (or Apple employees who cannot answer your kind of questions of Apple). We basically have to work with what Apple provides everybody in terms of information, plus whatever we learn here. So as far as why Apple does something, we don't know. From what you describe and what others have said in similar situations it would appear the support people have a limited number of resources which are basically similar to what you can read in Apple's documents. I would try calling them again and see if you can get the issue escalated to somebody higher on the ladder than the first level support people. Ultimately, while not common, yours is not the first story I have seen of unclear issues as to why an account has been disabled. You may just have to be persistent. Frankly I am not all that trusting of any online service and while many of the services they provide can be convenient, I am old-fashioned and there's nothing like having a copy of all your media on a couple of backup drives at home just in case.

You have no idea. This same thing has happened to me.. over 20 times now. And they just told me to continue this insanity and make a new Apple ID yet again. Just to let you know how expensive and deeply disturbing this has gotten..

I had 3 iPhones (smashed 2 out of frustration caused by being disabled for no reason), have 2 ipads and Ive had to BUY 3 more iPhones to make new Apple IDs (because they only allow 3 Apple ID to be made per device.) So I’ve spent roughly.. $6000? To make new Apple IDs. Due to my accounts being relentlessly disabled for no reason. The cost is one thing, but the time lost and stress gained is another!

It takes me about 2 weeks to delete, reinstall, restore, relink or recover, all my apps and accounts, sometime during this process it asks me for a payment method, which I provide so I have it setup if I want to buy something in the future and usually within 24hrs (had a few last a week or two) my account is disabled and they pass me around between representatives who all say exactly the same thing, “ Apple closed the account in accordance with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.” and REFUSE to name a specific reason and then tell me to make another Apple ID. Which literally just repeats everything I just said.