So my wife and I recently bought new iPad Air 4s with payment split between credit card and $700 worth of Apple gift cards ($100 on each of 7 obtained from my wife's employee recognition program) with old iPads to then be traded in. Problems with the purchase and now problems with the refund from the traded-in iPads. First problem (next paragraph) is resolved; 2nd problem is not but I list both as they may be related.
Purchase was two iPads and two sets of accessories. On the purchase side there was an email about a payment problem resolved (but never one about the payment in the first place). Then the accessories shipped. First pair of accessories charged to a gift card, second pair charged to the credit card. Weird (more than enough left on gift cards to cover that part of the order). Then just before the iPads themselves were due to ship, an email about a payment problem. Called, they could see there was a problem but not what it was (Apple's payment processing system seems to be very opaque and first line support cannot see what is really going on), opened a ticket. Next day, order showed all OK but initial credit card authorization was too high leaving over $100 of the gift cards unused. When the credit card amount finalized, most of that over $100 had moved to gift cards but still left $25.34 unused on the gift cards. And the gift cards were charged weird amounts so that nine different charges were applied to the gift cards despite there only being seven. I eventually figured out that the $25.34 left behind on the gift cards was exactly equal to the corporate discount I received on the accessories (no discount available on the iPads). At this point, the unused amount was an annoyance and as I soon realized there was another accessory I needed, was quickly used.
CURRENT PROBLEM: So I then sent the old iPads being traded-in. Within a few days, informed both met requirements and would receive $185 and $45 for them, the expected amounts ($230 total). I hadn't realized that because I paid partially with gift cards, they'd go back to gift cards but I'll live with that. But, only $214.22 of the $230.00 has appeared on gift cards and Apple cannot explain why or where that last $15.78 is. Initially, the refund was to three of the original gift cards - $100.00, $100.00, and $14.22 (I ran balance checks on all the original gift cards). I immediately transferred the $14.22 to my Apple account (at least I can work off my $3/month iCloud charges with it although it will take over six years if I don't buy anything else). The next morning, I had emails that the other $200 had been used to buy new gift cards (why?) along with emails with their numbers. The $200 was divided up $100.00, $52.19, and $47.81 - numbers that make no sense and cannot be tied back to the separate refund amounts of $185 and $45 so it's as if Apple just randomly selects amounts to put on cards. My guess is if I hadn't spent that $14.22 when it was on one of the original gift cards, it too would have been used to buy another gift cards. All support could tell me was they show the full $230 refunded but they apparently have no visibility into the details. Allegedly a ticket was sent to higher level payment support but with a two-week expected response time. I have checked the credit card used to see if it went there but nothing there. I'm guessing the corporate discount may be part of the problem which makes no sense since the iPads received no discount. In hindsight, I should have split the order - corporate discount items on one order exclusively credit card and the iPads on a regular store order with the gift card / credit card split.
Anyone have something like this happen? Any ideas for getting it resolved? For a company as technical as Apple, their e-commerce payment processing is abysmal.
Purchase was two iPads and two sets of accessories. On the purchase side there was an email about a payment problem resolved (but never one about the payment in the first place). Then the accessories shipped. First pair of accessories charged to a gift card, second pair charged to the credit card. Weird (more than enough left on gift cards to cover that part of the order). Then just before the iPads themselves were due to ship, an email about a payment problem. Called, they could see there was a problem but not what it was (Apple's payment processing system seems to be very opaque and first line support cannot see what is really going on), opened a ticket. Next day, order showed all OK but initial credit card authorization was too high leaving over $100 of the gift cards unused. When the credit card amount finalized, most of that over $100 had moved to gift cards but still left $25.34 unused on the gift cards. And the gift cards were charged weird amounts so that nine different charges were applied to the gift cards despite there only being seven. I eventually figured out that the $25.34 left behind on the gift cards was exactly equal to the corporate discount I received on the accessories (no discount available on the iPads). At this point, the unused amount was an annoyance and as I soon realized there was another accessory I needed, was quickly used.
CURRENT PROBLEM: So I then sent the old iPads being traded-in. Within a few days, informed both met requirements and would receive $185 and $45 for them, the expected amounts ($230 total). I hadn't realized that because I paid partially with gift cards, they'd go back to gift cards but I'll live with that. But, only $214.22 of the $230.00 has appeared on gift cards and Apple cannot explain why or where that last $15.78 is. Initially, the refund was to three of the original gift cards - $100.00, $100.00, and $14.22 (I ran balance checks on all the original gift cards). I immediately transferred the $14.22 to my Apple account (at least I can work off my $3/month iCloud charges with it although it will take over six years if I don't buy anything else). The next morning, I had emails that the other $200 had been used to buy new gift cards (why?) along with emails with their numbers. The $200 was divided up $100.00, $52.19, and $47.81 - numbers that make no sense and cannot be tied back to the separate refund amounts of $185 and $45 so it's as if Apple just randomly selects amounts to put on cards. My guess is if I hadn't spent that $14.22 when it was on one of the original gift cards, it too would have been used to buy another gift cards. All support could tell me was they show the full $230 refunded but they apparently have no visibility into the details. Allegedly a ticket was sent to higher level payment support but with a two-week expected response time. I have checked the credit card used to see if it went there but nothing there. I'm guessing the corporate discount may be part of the problem which makes no sense since the iPads received no discount. In hindsight, I should have split the order - corporate discount items on one order exclusively credit card and the iPads on a regular store order with the gift card / credit card split.
Anyone have something like this happen? Any ideas for getting it resolved? For a company as technical as Apple, their e-commerce payment processing is abysmal.