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I bought my son an iPod for Christmas and activated an iTunes account for him to use his gift cards, ONLY. Apple will not let you open an account, even if you are just using gift cards on the iTunes account, without providing a credit card. Great scam on Apple's part. My son swears that he was only downloading free applications, and when I went in to check his iPod history, indeed they were only free applications. So, how is it that my credit card is being charged anywhere from $10 to $170, recently? Trying to navigate through the Apple website, to get to the specific "help" areas for the specific product (iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes...) was and still is a nightmare. They have a category for everything that opens 10 different windows in your browser. They tell you that if you go to the account information page, just click on the edit button to delete your credit card information - yet, there is no "edit button" that pops up! And, the support email that I received back from the customer service person was 3 pages long of possible options to correct this fraudalent charge problem and not one of the links opens or does what it is supposed to do, except open more windows in your browser.
All I wanted was to cancel this nightmare account, and Apple purposely makes it incredibly difficult to get out of their tangled web of products so that you are trapped and spending more $$$'s on their downloads. Ugh...I will never buy another Apple product again. Thankfully, I have a BlackBerry and am sticking with PC's all the way in protest of how we have been scammed by Apple. Apple comes up with all these little nifty products and people just eat it up, never noticing that their iTunes store is eating up your bank and/or credit card account.
The fact that as of May 1st, 2010, Apple is not supporting flash, I will not be recommending the ipod, iphone or ipad. Apple, in my opinion, has driven a nail in their own coffin and will not be getting my support for their actions.
Flash really isn't very good... I think we would all be better off with the replacement of Flash with HTML 5. I do agree that Apple made a mistake not supporting it though. Just because it is a dying piece of software doesn't mean you should cut people off from using it if they wish.
Below is the link that was posted on my Facebook page. Supposedly I received this from a friend. The message was for a free ipod and said that she had just gotten a free ipod. She never sent the message. This company is using other peoples accounts to send this message.
http://www.appleipadtesters.info/
Obviously, I did.
yeah...I bit on this...and realized what it was _after_ the first page that collected my contact info...now I'm being hammered with sales calls (less than 24 hours later) -- my bad, I knew better, but it was from a Facebook friend that I trusted -- so I had my guard down...
Watch out for the Mcdonalds one on Facebook too. Someone is cloning accounts asking people to read about the disgusting things found in Mcdonalds food. Didn't click but, bet it's a virus.
Whenever you purchase something through iTunes, you will get a receipt via email detailing what was purchased. Maybe look through the emails (check SPAM too) for the receipts. That will show you what was billed to your credit card. If there is no receipt from iTunes, it's possible that someone could have stolen the number.
You can use iTunes without a credit card, you just can't download from their online store. However if you want to use the app store then you need a card. Apps are not an essential function of the iPod or iPhone. What you could have done was set up an account under your name with a password you do not share with your child. When your child wanted an app, you could have downloaded it for him. Then you could have had full control. Julie gives good advice. Whatever email address you created your account with will have receipts sent to it. Your child may not be fully truthful or aware, as some apps are free but have costly additional features within the application. Do you have a list of what he downloaded (apps, songs, et cetera)? What you should do is temporarily change the password and set controls on the account just to be safe and do not share the information with your child.
iTunes has never charged me when I have downloaded free applications. However, it is also possible they are having technical difficults. Just make sure to explore EVERY avenue, and good luck with your search!
For the credit card requirement issue, have you tried purchasing a Visa giftcard and entering that information into the credit card slot? Then it would still only charge the giftcard, but the system would read it like a credit card. Also, I found an interesting article that might be causing your situation:
http://credit.about.com/b/2010/07/02/watch-out-for-unauthorized-charges-from-itunes.htm
I hope this helps!
Yes it is a scam to set up your Ipod touch 5th generation ;tried gift card, atm card, will only accept credit card .
That is a giant scam!...