Can't use Apple Account Balance to complete purchase

So after further research this has been an issue every time you cancel or return an item bought with ID balance . (Which was the common denomonatir in our cases) You have to call back in and use these specific words “Please unblock my Purchasing Block on my Apple ID balance that was blocked when i cancelled Order mxxxxx”. If you use these words they won’t transfer you but instead create a case to level 2 which should get back in a day…. That’s the stage I’m in right now. If that doesn’t work , I’m emailing Tim Cook, if that doesn’t work BBB, it’s my hard earned real money, not just some store points

Thanks to this thread I finally learned how to deal with this problem (was blocked from purchasing a Studio Display using gift card credit that I had added to my account).

I called 1-800-692-7753 and the person that I spoke to said this was a common issue due a system upgrade from a month ago that disconnected "everyone's" store credit from their ability to purchase. She submitted the ticket to have mine resolved and told me it could take anywhere from an hour to 24 hours to receive the email confirmation. I got the email about 28 hours after the call and my purchase finally worked.

However the email said that I only had 24 hours from the time it was sent to make purchases. That's not a good sign that this issue was actually fixed.

Tried:

1. pay with balance + credit card, failed
2. Ask customer service to unredeem account balance back to original gift cards. Let my friend to use gift cards for purchases, failed
3. Ask customer service to do gift cards replacement. I have 20 cards, only received 5 replacements. Others stuck in somewhere - received email says "Problem with your payment authorization" for replacement orders.

I, too, have been in Apple order/payment block ****. Long story short, I had three separate experiences:

1. My Apple Account balance of over $1000 could not be used to make any transaction. This was resolved after 3.5 hours on the phone where Post Sales Support sent in a request to unblock the balance. Once this was completed (24 hours later), I was able to add the funds to my Apple Wallet (which was previously blocked). I was also able to use these funds to make Apple App Store Purchases.
2. I went to make a purchase using my Apple ID on Apple.com for a new Apple product. I tried to complete the purchase using my account balance and received a "Payment Failed" notification. I tried doing a partial payment with my credit card and with the Account Balance and received a "Payment Failed" notification. I spoke with Post Sales Support and they said my Apple Store Account was blocked. They put in a request via email and I was told I would receive an update within 24 hours. Received an email the next morning saying my account was unblocked and ready to use.
3. Attempted to make purchase following steps from #2 above after receiving the email of the unblocked account status. Received same errors. Spoke with Post Sales Support and explained my frustration (now over 6 hours of time wasted!). The rep was super knowledgable and suggested we unredeem one of the gift cards. After doing so, I still had enough Apple Account Balance to cover the purchase. I successfully completed my order in 30 seconds online. He said that he has seen this before and by removing a gift card from the balance it seems to initiate a reset on the freeze. I now have the unredeemed gift card and will use it to make a purchase using a "Pay with Gift Card" selection at checkout next time when I need it.

Hope the above helps you! Bottom line, talk to post sales support, ask them to unblock your funds if you cannot add the Balance to your Apple Wallet or ask them to unblock your account if you can't checkout at Apple.com, but you CAN add your Balance to your Apple Wallet and if that continues to fail thereafter, ask them to remove a gift card from your account. Good luck!!

I had the same issue since yesterday, but it finally worked after tweaking a few things today. The problem is, I'm not sure what triggered a successful transaction, but one, or all of the following probably did. Thanks, ahmadcpa, for a few important tips!

1. Applied my gift card/account balance LESS $1 (as suggested by ahmadcpa)
2. Used a CC to charge $1
3. Used the same email ID (contact details) as the one associated with my Apple account
4. Cleared the second line of address
5. Used first 5 digits for zip code ("ensure that the FOUR digits after the zip code are removed" as suggested by ahmadcpa)

Overall, I believe this is something to do with what you input in the address field or contact details. So, it takes a bit of trial-and-error to figure out.

Good luck!

I FINALLY got this problem solved today and determined - with certainty - that the ONLY solution is to place the order with your credit card and immediately call and ask the Sales team to convert the order to using your account balance as others have posted earlier. The other thing I had to do was talk to the media team and have them convert my Apple Account balance into gift cards. I then, painfully, had to give them all the digits to each of the gift cards over the phone. Note that this whole took me an additional 3 hours and 32 minutes on the phone with Apple Support on top of the time I called over the last 10 days.

I bumped into the same issue this morning when trying to order device online and in store by using left over iTunes balance. Bad luck through service hotline and in store agents. Finally figured out that in the Apple ID profile I used a different ZIP code (where I used way back)and I also remove an expired credit credit from another Apple ID shared home device. Wait for one hour, sales order went through without any issue. Good luck everyone!

Hey, I am facing the same issue here. However, I believe I have found out why the whole apple customer service are clueless on "Apple Account Balance disable" or "Unable to use Apple Account Balance". On Apple support's side, the system shows there is a purchasing block on the Apple Account Balance while on our (customer) side, we are unable to use our Apple Account Balance.

Here is the solution:

1. Call: 1-800-MY-APPLE, ask to be transferred to post sales team/support, and
2. ask them to check if you have a purchasing block on you Apple Account Balance (I assume the answer is YES for all of us in the discussion), and
3. ask them to file a unblock request to the "back office support team" to lift the purchasing block for you, and
4. you should hear back from APPLE in 24 hours.

I am in the process of waiting for response, Good Luck!

No they don’t charge immediately with apple balance

the thing is I was able to make a purchase of the screen protector and case in order 1 , with the phone itself in order 2 on the 11th. Even after the successful purchase , the money was not removed from my apple balance ..I had to chat with the support to confirm if this was normal and I was assured that it was.

then the day the order 1 was shipped , sept 16 … the cost of the items were finally deducted from my balance, which leaves the balance of the phone cost but later that same day I canceled the phone order and that was when this issue started

so they don’t billed apple account balance immediately

Has anyone ever been in this issue ??

my order was just cancelled today by the system itself and I tried replacing the order but it shows apple balance disabled

the customer service people I’ve been on call with ain’t helpful

I'm in the same boat here! I never used this Apple ID before to make any purchases (not even with a cc) because my main Apple ID has a different region/currency. So I loaded this one with a bunch of gift cards I bought yesterday and tried to place an order for a MacBook, however, it did not proceed with the next step! I don't get any error messages, but whenever I hit the blue button, it will grey out for a moment with a little something spinning right next to it and nothing would happen, it just turns back to blue again! The chat support rep was not able to spot a block from her side and this was escalated to a senior advisor over the phone. I'm expecting a call in like 2 hours from now. I assumed before reading this thread, that it has something to do with reloading the account with multiple gift cards at once. I'm really frustrated, as the Back To School offer would be over in 2 days! :(

Same, also how long ago was your return? I had a cancellation from few days ago so maybe thats why? not sure. I have a lot of good money put into my account balance, which was a stupid move on my part

I haven't canceled or returned any items so I'm not sure if that would apply to me.

Let us know how it works out! I won't be able to make it to the Apple Store today unless I get out of class rather early.