Apple locked me out and says that's it?

[Henk van Ess]

So I gave this whole matter some thought and decided that I will ask a lawyer to start a legal procedure here. I am fully aware that it is my own fault that


I do understand that all these hurdles are meant to be for my own protection

But I don't agree that I can't set 2FA or otherwise secure my account although I have my password, birthdate and that I am locked out with ****@me.com although I never used it as a device identification, just mail. Will keep you posted about the legal procedure and maybe I can be of use for those , as I do, who agree with https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-locked-me-out-and-says-thats-it.2271904/post-29316909

 

[DeltaMac]

One small point -- Answers to security questions are not case-sensitive, so caps or no caps is not an issue.
For example, London Bridge is the same as london bridge.
You just need to know the correct answer, including spaces, if any.

Capitals don't matter for answers to the security questions.
If someone told you that, they were wrong.

 

[Henk van Ess]

One small point -- Answers to security questions are not case-sensitive, so caps or no caps is not an issue. For example, London Bridge is the same as london bridge. You just need to know the correct answer, including spaces, if any.
Capitals don't matter for answers to the security questions.
If someone told you that, they were wrong.

That's NOT what Apple representatives told me via 1 chat 2. telephone. Are you completely sure of this, because in legal procedure I want to have my facts straight. I saw some postings from 2017 about answer NOT being case sensitive, is that your source?

 

[Henk van Ess]

As I think even longer... I never used ****@me.com with a device linked to that Apple ID, used it only as mail. Why am I treated like someone who did?

 

[DeltaMac]

No, the only way that I know this is that I have two questions with names. The times that I log in to my AppleID, and I need the answers, I always use a capital - it is a name, after all. I tested that by making a mistake on login, so it would trigger the security questions. This time, I purposely use all lower case. I have never tried that before. As you know, if the password has capitals, you have to use those. A missing cap would be an immediate fail. This time, lower case for the name as a security answer was accepted without issue.
So, my own personal experience, answers to security questions are not case-sensitive.
I also did a google search "Are AppleID security answers case-sensitive?" Check it yourself...

If you use your ***@me.com as your AppleID account name, then that's where it all comes from.
I use a gmail address for my AppleID account, and don't use it at all for anything else - it's not my primary email, for example. I am not suggesting that you do that, but just mentioning that the AppleID account is tied to whatever email address that you use as the AppleID account name.
Your ****@me.com is your AppleID account name, and also an active email account that you use. Access to use your email is not affected by a lockout from your AppleID, unless you need access to iCloud, or some other feature of your AppleID account. Sending or receiving email does not usually need access to iCloud.

 

[planteater]

I think it's due to privacy. Once you link an ID to an Apple account, then it's even higher risk for privacy breaches or law enforcement requests. It's a trade off I think, and Apple will be highly liable if something happens.

Interesting. I've never considered that. I do certainly value privacy.

 

[Henk van Ess]

Your ****@me.com is your AppleID account name, and also an active email account that you use. Access to use your email is not affected by a lockout from your AppleID, unless you need access to iCloud, or some other feature of your AppleID account. Sending or receiving email does not usually need access to iCloud.

If I manually enter user and password in Internet Accounts to activate ****@me.com, I am redirected to the "You are locked out" screen. I don't need and don't want iCloud for my mail account but Apple says I do.

 

[Henk van Ess]

For those who lost track, here is my working ****@me.com account .

1. This account works fine on MBP 16
2. If I want to add same account ( I know my password) on M1, it says account is locked
3. The mail account should work independently from the iCloud account, some people say. But if it does, why do i get "locked account" message?

To make it more confusing:

4. If I use migration assistent on M1 and restore, M1 doesn't ask anything and I have access to my mail also on M1 now!

 

[iDron]

I get the feeling that with the security question, you don’t need to have all the characters right. At least it happened a few times with my Gmail account, that I forgot what I wrote at some question 10 years ago (“what was your first dream job”, seriously idk anymore what I thought back then) and guessed something, but it worked. Maybe they just check how closely it is related to the stored information, or what other inputs you have tried in the past...

 

[Henk van Ess]

I get the feeling that with the security question, you don’t need to have all the characters right. At least it happened a few times with my Gmail account, that I forgot what I wrote at some question 10 years ago (“what was your first dream job”, seriously idk anymore what I thought back then) and guessed something, but it worked. Maybe they just check how closely it is related to the stored information, or what other inputs you have tried in the past...

if so, then i completely blocked out who my best friend was when i was a teenager

 

[throAU]

There was no 2FA in 1990

No, but apple have been suggesting you add it to your account for about 5-10 years now.

 

[throAU]

if so, then i completely blocked out who my best friend was when i was a teenager

Or someone compromised your account and changed your security question...

 

[iDron]

if so, then i completely blocked out who my best friend was when i was a teenager

Well but to be honest, for such kind of questions answers might change... You might realize A was not as good a friend as B was...
Questions like mom’s maiden name, first boyfriend/girlfriend etc. are much more safe

 

[Henk van Ess]

No, but apple have been suggesting you add it to your account for about 5-10 years now.

i do not use it as verification as iCloud but as email only

 

[Henk van Ess]

Or someone compromised your account and changed your security question...

But then should Apple have a procedure for that, if I was hacked

 

[cdcastillo]

No you do not HAVE IT. You repeatedly tried to guess the password on your new Mac and failed. Your old Mac is currently logged in, and that's different.

Hold your horses here, there is no guesswork involved. I know the password, and I only get the Account Locked warning after entering correct password. If I type in a random password, it doesn't give me that. Just look carefully at screenshots of first posting. The same events happen when I go to Iforgot. So if I type a nonsensical password, it won't work like that

You told us you did not remember which caps you used, you tried to guess which of the characters were in small caps or big caps. That is guessing. You do not know the exact password, not matter how much you try to tell us differently, that's why you locked your account, with bad guesses. Same with the security questions.

Once again: The "I'm trying to remember which ones were in caps" is guessing. I really sympathize with you, but you're convinced the system is working wrong when that's not the case. It is working as it should.

 

[Henk van Ess]

You told us you did not remember which caps you used, you tried to guess which of the characters were in small caps or big caps. That is guessing. You do not know the exact password, not matter how much you try to tell us differently, that's why you locked your account, with bad guesses. Same with the security questions.

Once again: The "I'm trying to remember which ones were in caps" is guessing. I really sympathize with you, but you're convinced the system is working wrong when that's not the case. It is working as it should.

Again, I know my password . It’s in Keychain , in a password manager and written down. And I remember it. Either a hacker tried to guess my password and disabled my account by trying or something else happened. My caps nagging is not about the password for login, had no worrries, but answering the security questions.

As said in thread, I do understand that all these hurdles are there for my own protection, remembering password was not the problem.

 

[Strangedream]

Yikes this could totally happen to me since I never keep a record of my secret Q&A anywhere.

I hope you can recover your account, but if you can't you should give Apple a call, ask them to cancel any subscription you still have on this account. Then download everything you have on your iCloud onto your 16" MBP that's still logged in, and create a new account.

Good luck anyways!

 

[Henk van Ess]

Yikes this could totally happen to me since I never keep a record of my secret Q&A anywhere.

I hope you can recover your account, but if you can't you should give Apple a call, ask them to cancel any subscription you still have on this account. Then download everything you have on your iCloud onto your 16" MBP that's still logged in, and create a new account.

Good luck anyways!

Thanks for thinking along. I do not have any accounts / subscriptions attached to ****@me.com I just use it for mail and only when I needed the mail also on the M1, I found out that I am considered to have been upgraded to the *****@me.com to the iCloud universe, including security rules of iCloud... My real iCloud account is a different one...

 

[Henk van Ess]

Yikes this could totally happen to me since I never keep a record of my secret Q&A anywhere.

That's why I am so open about this: other users can learn from this thread

 

[Fishrrman]

Ain't "the cloud" great?

I keep almost NOTHING "in the cloud".
Everything is "right here", locally stored on my own drives, that I can "touch" at any time.
I could never trust my data any other way. But then again, I'm "old school" and at my age, that will not change.

OP has learned something about maintaining passwords.
That is: unless you WRITE THEM DOWN, or save them some other way, you could get into "password hell" someday with no way out. Applies to "security questions", too.

I helped a friend out of a similar hell.
Easiest way was to create for him a Pages document that could be used to store usernames and passwords.
Pages will lock a document with a password of its own, to prevent access by the unauthorized.

I'm including it with this post:

 

[Ruggy]

It says there that the @me isn't the primary icloud account and you say you don't use it as an icloud account
Ok, well in that case sign inwith the primary account- should be-@icloud these days- and any messages going to @me will appear in the same email account as @icloud.
Once you are signed into icloud all email assigned to you- that's icloud, me or mac, will go to your box
I don't think it's technically possible to sign into icloud with a me account anymore. Maybe the old one still is because you have never signed it out but I don't think it's locked it out because you've got something wrong in fact, only that you can only sign in nowadays with icloud or a phone number
Have you actually tried just signing in with your primary icloud identity and sending an email to the me account to see what happens?

Yes, just checked a couple of things.
When setting up the email account on your new computer, try using 'other' rather than 'icloud' when it asks you who your providor is -iCloud, AOL etc.
If you try to use iCloud it will try to sign you into iCloud which it won't let you do because they only allow iCloud email to do that nowadays and you don't want to do it anyway, but you can have more than one Apple email address if you use the other option- I've got my kids' ones too.

 

[AVonGauss]

Deleted.

 

[chabig]

If I want to add same account ( I know my password) on M1, it says account is locked

I think that's because you're trying to sign into iCloud with the .me username. If all you want from .me is email, then open the Mail app preferences and add the email account there.

 

[colocolo]

This will not help you at all, but on repeated posts you claim to have this account since 1990. I think I was using System 6 or 7 at the time probably on an se/30. I think me.com was from like mid 2000s, wasn’t it?
Anyway, good luck with your account and I hope you can get unlocked. Let us know how it turns out.