icloud 99p payment from phone no longer used since 2017 !!

forumuser02

I have had a 99p a month payment being taken for icloud storage from an old 02 phone since 2017!!

I contacted o2 to try and get it stopped, but I don't know the phone number of this old phone, so they are saying there is nothing they can do!

I asked if they could locate it via my email and maybe email me some kind of verification to prove it is me, but they are saying this is not possible.

They suggested I call my credit card company and get the payment stopped, which I did - Tesco credit card told me they would stop it, but it wouldn't guarantee the payment would not come out!

The payment has come out again and they are saying that the only way to ensure this 99p a month gets stopped is to close my credit card account completely and that I should decide if 99p a month is worth all that hassle!

Obviously it isn't worth the hassle, but how many perhaps millions of people are stuck with this situation I wonder?

Has anyone else got this problem?

DullGreyGuy

Confused... so is the 99p being charged to your old mobile number and your monthly bill for that mobile is being paid by your credit card? Or is the charge going directly to the credit card in which case what has this got to do with O2? 

iCloud would normally be charged by Apple and is neither phone nor phone number dependent. Have you logged into your Apple Account and looked under Subscriptions? 

WelshPaul

To cancel your subscription, you need to log in to your Apple account. If you can’t remember your login details, you can contact Apple, and they should be able to locate the account for you.

Frozen_up_north

Log onto your iCloud and change it there.

Incidentally, when you instruct a credit card company to stop recurring payments, they have to act on your instructions. The Financial Conduct Authority have this web page giving details:
https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/recurring-card-payments

DE_612183

It's not the phone - it's the iCloud account ( which would have been accessed via your phone at some point ).

You need to know the iCloud account ( normally something like frozen.upnorth@icloud.com

ballyblack

I have come across this before. Apple making large profits from people who can't be bothered to cancel a small 99p payment. Another reason to avoid Apple altogether 

Frozen_up_north

ballyblack said:

I have come across this before. Apple making large profits from people who can't be bothered to cancel a small 99p payment. Another reason to avoid Apple altogether 

Why are Apple any different to any other company? It is up to the user to cancel, which is very easy to do - I stopped my iCloud payment recently due to the Government mandating that Apple give them access to any account they ask for... Now all my files/pictures are backed up to Proton Drive.

DE_612183

I wonder how many iCloud accounts there are worldwide that have this charge - 1 billion?

That's the equivalent of a £1 billion turnover monthly for doing not much - just making server space available which we know is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time....

QrizB

OP hasn't been back to the thread, but the two key points seem to be:

- Tesco can definitely terminate the payment authorisation, and

- You can log on to the iCloud account and stop the payment from there.

It's nothing to do with O2.

DullGreyGuy

ballyblack said:

I have come across this before. Apple making large profits from people who can't be bothered to cancel a small 99p payment. Another reason to avoid Apple altogether 

Millions of companies do, it's far from unique to Apple. Google just charge £1.59 rather than 99p for their first step increase in cloud storage.

DE_612183 said:

I wonder how many iCloud accounts there are worldwide that have this charge - 1 billion?

That's the equivalent of a £1 billion turnover monthly for doing not much - just making server space available which we know is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time....

In fairness to them, what you get for your 99p has also changed overtime too, right now it gets you 50GB whereas in 2011 it was 10GB. Given the changes in buying power it's arguably actually 75GB now seeing as 99p now requires £1.48 to buy the same. 

2018 was the last numbers available which had 170m paying subscribers -v- 850m total iCloud accounts. At that time there were 888m active iPhones estimated. Now active iPhones is a little over 1.4bn so the chances of them having 1bn paying subscribers seems very low especially as family groups can share a subscription.

just under 25% of their revenue comes from "service" which includes iCloud but also their apps, warranties, AppleTV etc

DE_612183

DullGreyGuy said:

ballyblack said:

I have come across this before. Apple making large profits from people who can't be bothered to cancel a small 99p payment. Another reason to avoid Apple altogether 

Millions of companies do, it's far from unique to Apple. Google just charge £1.59 rather than 99p for their first step increase in cloud storage.

DE_612183 said:

I wonder how many iCloud accounts there are worldwide that have this charge - 1 billion?

That's the equivalent of a £1 billion turnover monthly for doing not much - just making server space available which we know is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time....

In fairness to them, what you get for your 99p has also changed overtime too, right now it gets you 50GB whereas in 2011 it was 10GB. Given the changes in buying power it's arguably actually 75GB now seeing as 99p now requires £1.48 to buy the same. 

2018 was the last numbers available which had 170m paying subscribers -v- 850m total iCloud accounts. At that time there were 888m active iPhones estimated. Now active iPhones is a little over 1.4bn so the chances of them having 1bn paying subscribers seems very low especially as family groups can share a subscription.

just under 25% of their revenue comes from "service" which includes iCloud but also their apps, warranties, AppleTV etc

Thanks DGG - I did think it would be more - anyway - still a nice little earner!