March 7, 2023, 8 p.m. by James
On Sunday 2/26/2023 at approximately 11:00pm HST I received a call from someone who introduced themselves as Apple Card Goldman-Sachs Fraud Department. They said that someone was trying to make large purchase on my Apple card. I got scared and regrettably gave them my Apple ID log in information. Soon after, the scammers changed my Apple ID password and 2FA "Trusted Number" to their phone number. They proceeded to breach my checking account by using our debit cards that were saved to our phones. The scammers instantly stole $498.11 from my checking and converted it to Apple Cash.
We were able to cancel all of our debit cards to prevent further theft, but numerous attempts have still been made by the scammers. They also tried to empty out my Apple Card, along with trying to breach my other credit cards that I had saved on my phone; but luckily we were able to put a lock on them. Since then, I've filed a police report with the Honolulu Police Dept. (case# 23-079264), reported this situation to Transunion and Equifax, and we're currently in contact with the FBI about this case.
Over the past week I've made dozens of phone calls to Apple, spoken with numerous senior advisors, and have had 2 visits to the Apple store. All I wanted to do was to recover my Apple ID account, but have been consistently told that without my trusted number nothing can be done.
It's disheartening and extremely uncomfortable to know that someone currently has access to my and my family's Apple ID information (Cloud, photos, contacts, communications, etc.), but Apple keeps saying they can't do anything about it. I keep being told that the only thing I can do is to submit an "Activation Lock Removal Request" for all of our devices, being that we all share 1 Apple ID and have the "Find My" feature activated on each device so we've all been locked out and can't even erase our phones and start again. I've also had to provide proof of purchase for every device (7 total devices); which I did, but still got denied for one of them.
The device that got denied was an older iMac. However, I NEVER received any message from Apple stating that my device was denied the unlock request. I found out from calling an Apple advisor. Not only that, I took the device to the Apple Store Kahala (Oahu, HI) as they told me they could unlock the device. But they found out that they couldn't unlock it but was provided with NO reason why by Apple.
This has been a nightmare, and I've received no help or have been given any hope that this can be fixed. I find it hard to believe that Apple simply can't prove that I'm the owner of my Apple ID (McClure48@msn.com), and provide a way for me to confirm that I've always owned my Apple ID account, and that my password and 2FA info was changed on 2/26/23 at approximately 11:30pm HST. I'm especially upset that I can't even receive any direct communication from Apple as to the fact that my Activation Lock request was denied or why it was denied.
PLEASE HELP. All I want is for my Apple ID: McClure48@msn.com, to be returned to me so that I can salvage all of my personal information and hundreds of dollars of purchases that I made from the Apple store and iTunes.
PS. Here's the latest case number of many that have been filed: 101948193591
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