Lion download charged me 20 time more = $599.80 - Help!!!

Hello, I have the same problem, but it was only charged 2 times. I'm from Austria and I bought it via Click&Buy. I also contacted the Mac Appstore support and they said that it is a problem of Click&Buy, but I don't get an answer from Click&Buy. Good to know that it's not an individual case. It's very annoying that both sides don't admit the fault. Maybe someone knows what I can do further.

Thanks in advice

This certainly smells like an Apple problem. It's happening to people using multiple forms of payment. I myself used a credit card and was charged multiple times. Apple should step up to the plate and take responsibility for it's errors. This isn't rocket science. Each Apple ID gets one purchase. As for multiple machines using the same Apple ID, don't they have some type of authoriztion like they do for music? i.e. you can only use software purchased with that Apple ID on no more than five computers.

It has started to hit the news. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/27/paypal_users_mistakenly_charged_as _much_as_4000_for_mac_os_x_lion.html

I had the same problem. Bought one copy via the app store, account was charged correct amount. Then I bought Lion Server to upgrade my Snow Leopard server. Instead of just selling me the app, it insisted on selling me Lion as well! Then after the upgrade, I discovered that I'd been charged the bundle twice as well as Lion!

I dealt with Apple via e-mail and the first response was "you shouldn't have clicked buy multiple times"! I pointed out that I didn't and asked the dude to confirm that one Lion purchase was good for 5 systems. He confirmed this and eventually refunded all purchases except one Lion upgrade! But the money went straight out of my account on my Visa Debit card and took 5 days to go back from Apple!

I also had the dude confirm that my Lion and Lion Server are still considered legit even though they've refunded the purchase price.

Hi all,

I have sadly had the same situation as many here on the board. I have been charged a total of 4 times, one valid, the three others erroneous. I have, as a result, been charged overdraft fees, and for a while suffered a period of rather intense financial instability. I used Pypal with a direct line of debit to my bank, making all purchases as-cash and directly reflected on my statement without my knowledge or the possibility of advance intervention.

I contacted Paypal support first, thinking it originally to be a glitch on their end; to which their surprisingly knowledgeable and polite customer service representatives assured me that it was a problem of the billing agreement issuer, in this case Apple. They assured me that they would not allow any further charges of this sort on my account, and even helped me find a support number to call Apple regarding the issue.

Unfortunately, the support number given to me - once making my way through the obligatory corporate tech. support phone tree - redirected me to ask any service, billing, or technical questions I had regarding either the Mac App Store or iTunes to Apple's support website. I re-tried this using a different approach through the tree, only to be redirected to the website again.

On contacting the Mac App Store customer service team, I received a response from "Phil." Sadly, Phil stated that the problem was with the credit card issuer (to which it is not, as I am not using a credit card, but a debit) and payment processor (PayPal); a response which completely ignored the intial worry and reason for bringing about the service request. As a personal note of dissatisfaction, he also misspelled my name both times he mentioned it within his initial reply. While he was polite, he was incredibly unhelpful and unattentive to the problem summary that I had presented for him in my initial contact; so, I sent off a reply e-mail detailing my problem in more exacting (and polite, yet firm) language.

To this I received a generic 'Apple is investigating your issue. Please wait for a response.' message. I have thus contacted my bank, and they have assured me that they will begin an investigation as to how these charges originated on my account. I am quite galled - like many others here - that both Apple and PayPal have resorted to pointing fingers at each other without coming to a definite conclusion as to what the problem is being caused by.

Perhaps moreso than that, however, I am more horrified than not that both seem to be unwilling to care about our varying states of financial duress caused by their own error. While I understand that these are corporate entities, and not caring NGOs, or something of the sort, it strikes me as quite revealing in that a bank is more willing to return my money to me than either of the corporations at fault. I feel as if I have been robbed of something, perhaps selfishly and un-rightfully so, but I do not feel that the company at the heart of this problem should lay unpunished in some form or another.

Add me to the list, as well. I purchased Lion through the App store, where my payment option is PayPal tied to a checking account. I was immediately charged three times for it. I immediately sent a complaint through the App store, and received three refunds within an hour.

A couple hours later, I was charged four more times for Lion. I sent another complaint to the same rep, and got four refunds. The next day, they charged me an eighth time.

The rep who handled the matter insisted that this occurred because the credit card tied to my PayPal account was expired, and the charges would never appear. Well, (1) I had a $36 credit in the App store, so my PayPal account never should have been charged in the first place, and (2) my bank account was the funding source for the PayPal account.

When I saw that the charges DID hit my bank account, I got nasty in my next email, since my bank account had $226.17 taken out of it for a product that was supposed to cost $32.31 w/ tax. I said that if it was not fixed, I was going to file a complaint for theft with the local police. I also contacted PayPal and terminated the contract I had allowing Apple to charge me through PayPal.

The Apple rep's response to my email was to disable my Apple ID completely and ignore future emails I sent. I called the 800-MY-APPLE number, and was finally able to get to a supervisor who was able to sort things out and re-activate my disabled Apple ID. That took over an hour.

The refunds Apple sent to PayPal took three days to post to my PayPal account, and will take another three days to get back to my bank account. In the end, I'm out of $226.17 for a week, which was not enough to over-draft my account. So, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

My first bad customer service experience with Apple in 20+ years as a user.

Happened to me, too. I just bought my first Mac (a mini) last week with Lion preinstalled. Actually, all I did was buy Angry Birds for the Mac at $4.99 ($5.29 with tax). My PayPal shows two charges for $5.29, but also shows that iTunes "refunded" that money (even though the refund has not materialized yet). I figured that it just had to be straightened out during the upcoming bank week to be resolved, but it wasn't. In fact, I later bought Angry Birds for my iPhone ($0.99 on the store, so $1.05 with tax) and I was given ANOTHER charge for $6.34 (both apps),

Apple's email support has been less than helpful - they continually state that they only see one charge on their side of the transaction. PayPal told me twice over the phone that I have to wait for the money to clear from both my bank account (which it has already) as well as the money from the ITunes store refunds that are listed on my PayPal. Once again, the "refund" will be put into my PayPal account and I have to manually move it back to my bank.

I'm pretty frustrated with PayPal and Apple at this point. Thank goodness it was only Angry Birds. I blew most of my budget this pay to get the Mac in the first place.

One of the things I also did was remove PayPal as my payment method on iTunes. I'll use my check card for now. If this happens again, I'm switching to a credit card so they can get denied when I dispute the transactions. Also, I'm REALLY gun-shy about buying ANYTHING else on the App Store until I'm am GUARANTEED that Apple won't clear out my bank account just because I think Pages is a good idea.

Despite it all though, I actually really like this Mac mini. I'm typing this with it now. Go figure.

I am so furious with Apple, PayPal, and the people working for them that are responsible for this error, and especially at the way they are "handling" the issue. I have nothing nice to say right now. I just spent 2 hours writing a 5th email to Apple. I have explained everything I needed to about the situation and I asked questions. After 4 responses from Apple, the rep still has not answered a single one of my questions.

As you have noticed they removed a few of my posts as well, and I never even broke the rules of the forum. They removed them to cover up what I had written, and it was only information about exactly what Apple was doing to me on the phone and with my account. No personal information, no cuss words, they just want to cover it up. This post will probably get removed too, maybe not. Who knows what Apple is up to right now? They sure are not working on answering any questions or fixing anybody's problems with this theivery. Not for me anyway.

I started this whole situation very professional and I was extremely nice considering the situation, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. I am really starting to hate Apple to it's core. They are going to have to perform a miracle to change my mind about the way they treat people.

Hello, I also have the same problem. Lion Client and Server charged 2 times.

Same issue here. On 7/20, charged 15x for Mac OS Lion for a total of $476.85. Called PayPal first. Called Apple next. The refund finally made it's way back to my bank account today.

I wish one of these companies would take the blame and issue a statement already.

Like someone else mentioned, I have my paypal account linked to an account I use for internet purchases only, and as a result of multiple charges, it has overdrawn my account. According to Paypal, I've been refunded for the extra purchases, however, that checking account hasn't reflected that. I'm sure it'll take days before it does, and then days to put the money back into my account. Not to mention Paypal will charge me a percentage to put it back into my account.

This is unacceptable!

Finally received a response back today:

Dear Jason,

Thank you for writing back. This is Lavanya again and I apologize for any miscommunication which happened.

Jason, some customers who placed orders recently had their PayPal or ClickandBuy accounts billed multiple times for the same orders.

Apple is currently working toward a resolution for the issue you have reported. You will receive an email after the matter has been investigated and further information is available.

Thank you for your patience. Apple wants your iTunes experience to be as enjoyable as possible.

Sincerely,

Lavanya,

iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support

So Apple is obviously admitting it is their fault, not paypals?

I have had this same problem i was charged 15 times for it and have not yet recieved any word from apple regarding this, paypal says it refunded me the 500 dollars but as of right now i have recieved not one refund yet. This is absoulutely riddiculouse. And to make it worse there is no phone number and my paycheck gets depositited into the account that is been riddled with these charges.