iPhone users urged to check their subscriptions after claims staff signed people up without consent
Apple is at the center of a scandal that claims some of its staff knowingly signed customers up for auto-renewing trials on the likes of Apple One, Apple Music, and Apple TV.
Consumer rights advocate Louis Rossmann has released a series of YouTube videos, maintaining that Apple employees have been signing customers up for services by positioning them as ‘gifts’ but not making auto-renewal terms clear.
In the USA, customers visit an Apple Store and are asked if they want to scan a QR code for a personalized shopping experience known as ‘Connect &Personalize’.
What is Apple's Connect & Personalize experience?
Employees are able to view information like what devices someone owns and which Apple subscriptions they currently have active. It's said that Apple staff then show consumers what subscription offers are available to them, with employees having 'agree' and 'decline' buttons on their own devices. As the default payment method associated with someone's account is listed here, it's supposedly possible for staff to sign you up.
Advert
As noted by 9 to 5 Mac, buying an iPhone currently offers a three-month free trial of Apple TV. It's seemingly less clear that it'll automatically start charging your default payment method if you don't cancel before the end of that period.
It's alleged that staff were reminded to show these offers to wannabe customers but were also set a 40% sign-up target that was tracked as a performance metric.
Rossmann maintains that a store member told him that some employees were under pressure to hit their targets and were pressing the accept button without getting proper consent from customers.
In one video, one whistleblower told Rossmann: "If we don’t hit services attachment at least 40 per cent of the time, we are put on PIPs. Honest team members usually attach services under 15 per cent of the time."
Those who hit targets were supposedly rewarded with positive reviews and promotions, while one store is accused of holding an internal promotion that awarded the person with the most service sign-ups with a $100 Apple gift card.
There was an immediate backlash to these claims, and as more people came forward, Rossmann's original video from October 25 has racked up over 670,000 views.
What's the latest with Apple's sign-up scandal?
In a follow-up video from November 7, Rossmann thanked 'whistleblowers' and customers who'd reached out, saying that Apple has seemingly already changed its policy. Quoting one whistleblower email, Rossman said: "My store held our usual morning meeting, in which my heart skipped a beat during a message related to service sign-ups. The regional manager shared a message that was meant to be read verbatim in ALL stores.
“In short, it urged employees to ensure that all customers are pushing accept on their own. The message included all forms of waivers and forms, including service sign-ups, in the
list."
That Apple employee apparently wasn't impressed with how the message was delivered, adding that the vibe was 'lackluster' and was "just management covering themselves. My manager read the script in a monotone voice and moved on without further discussion."
Rossman suggests that some sort of companywide memo went out to try and mitigate a scandal, but at the time of writing, there doesn’t seem to be a public response from Apple.
That same whistleblower also claimed that the metric attached to trial sign-ups has been removed, while others on Reddit and in emails to Rossman appear to back this up.
One apparent Apple employee thanked Rossman for his work, saying their target had been at 0% for weeks and they were worried it would be flagged by managers. Still, Rossman himself says he hasn't done anything other than relay stories that others have told him.
UNILADTech has reached out to Apple for comment.
