Credit Card is Declined

This started happening to me today out of the blue. First discovered it on my iPhone trying to make a purchase. When I tried on my MacBook I got the same result. Updated my billing info, tried different payment methods - all gave same result.

Both devices were connected via work wi-fi. After reading this thread I decided to try taking the iPhone off wi-fi and was able to complete the previous purchase while only connected to 3G.

The interesting piece is that I've had no problems with this until today and I've verified that the wi-fi connection tiself is not the culprit.

As another user mentioned, I solved this by turning off WiFi on my iPhone and completing the purchase over 3G. Of course, this doesn't solve the problem for an iPod Touch or my MBP.

I started having this problem when I upgraded from an iPhone 3 to the iPhone 4. I had no idea what was going on until I found this forum and found out 100's of people like me have this same problem. I cannot download any apps on my new phone or update them. I can add them on iTunes and then sync them with my phone but it's a pain.

I thought creating a new account would fix this issue but it's still blocking me with the new account. Of course it's probably my credit cards that are blocked so it will keep blocking the accounts I make.

I did email iTunes tech support and they told me my billing account was blocked and they are working on it to fix it and that it may take several days, it's been about a week now, I am getting impatient.

It's been a HUGE relief reading this forum, because the exact same thing happened to me a few days ago, and I've been freaking out. I'm currently completely locked out of my Itunes account. Can't make any purchases (not even with the credit I have), can't even make free app updates from my Iphone. At least now I know it's a general problem, and I'm not alone :')

I don't know what triggered this, though. I'm currently visiting family in Puerto Rico, but PR is a US territory, and has always used the US Store. PR is even listed as one of the states when I tried to input my cc info. And I copied the address exactly as it appears on my credit card provider.

grr. I e-mailed them, am awaiting a response, and very anxious, and very, very angry.

I have the same issue after I synced up my new iPad. I thought I was going crazy and spend 1 1/2 hours 2 days ago with a person in the Apple Store. I spent another hour today. We even created a second account to see if my credit card was issue (I knew it was NOT), and it worked perfectly. The Apple rep tried to convince me to have 2 accounts and to authorize my music with 2 separate accounts! NO!! I have had an email into iTune support for over 48 hours and have gotten 3 emails saying that they are looking into this and have escalated the issue to some senior engineer. I am really bummed as I am tasked by my CIO and CEO to evaluate how we can integrate the iPad into our company. This is leaving a bad taste and I will have to report back that the support from iTunes is very low. Two other funny things... my PayPal account says that it is a credit card and declined. PayPal is not a credit card and this is after it was verified and I was directed back to iTunes successfully! Also, I can no longer post a review of my apps that I did buy with my ID. This seems to affect posting reviews in iTunes, too!

One more thought... I did buy a gift card that did let me buy some of my apps... bummer but it works. I just hope they can fix this really soon. This is not good!

I feel your pain mate, as I am having the same problems. I did how ever manage to get my updates by changing my account to "none" when asked for payment. I am also able to download "free" apps. I am still unable to purchase anything as they still say my method of payment is declined. Am awaiting a response from CS after raising concern.

So there is some light at the end of the tunnel I hope or I may have just been lucky. I must also say that I had deleted itunes and then re-installed to no avail.

I hope this helps

Cop-u-later

Yes, I had some good success with that too. I did buy a gift card and it works. This allowed me to buy the apps I needed for now. 🙂

I'm going into my 4th day and no response from iTunes customer service yet... Very frustrating!!!!

Apple technical team has fixed the security system flaw on the iTunes appstore that was tormenting thousands of customers. My case was resolved after more than three weeks.

However had to figure it out by myself as customer support decided to leave everyone with this issue on its own and without the song credits they were giving away for the trouble. Don´t care about it, but a heads up with an apology would be a sign of courtesy.

Well, they just fixed my account and I am all set. I still have not gotten an all clear so I am bugged by that. See no evil, say no evil, speak no evil. I just would like an email of what happened.

I just noticed this problem today. I've been using my US itunes account with US credit card in US all this while with no problems. But I am currently working in Malaysia and I can't make any purchases with the credit card decline problem. I called up my bank and was told there were no restrictions or problems with my banking account. What is going on Apple?

My problems have been resolved today. I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones. My problem has been fixed in 3 days following my first email. I cant say I found them helpful but certainly found them vague. I'm not complaining as my problem has been sorted but I am unaware of what the cause was or why.

Cop-u-later

Same problem for us over here in Iraq. As of today my account is useless. It's a shame apple won't support us over here!

Same problem in Qatar.

I am one of the lucky ones too. I emailed them yesterday afternoon and got a reply this afternoon. So, got my problem solved in less than 48hours.

The response:
"I am sorry that you have experienced difficulties while attempting to update your account information. Please try again in 24 hours. If you are still unable to update your account information, let me know."

I was at work when I got the response. So after work, I went home and tried my luck with purchasing an app again. Lo and behold, I was able to buy apps again! I don't know what's the problem and what they did to fix the problem I had, but it's back to normal now.

The link I used to report the problem: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact.html?form=account&topic=iTunes%20Sto re%20Account%20and%20Billing&subtopic=Managing%20your%20Account

Just had mine locked today. cant even get at free apps, which is freaking ridiculous.