OS X Lion costs users up to $4,000 after Mac App Store PayPal blunder
Customers paying for Mac OS X Lion using PayPal have been hit with massive bills, after being charged multiple times. One user reports being charged nearly $4,000 for the new software.
Several PayPal customers who used the service to purchase Mac OS X Lion have been hit with massive bills, after being charged many times for the same download, MacRumors reports.
One customer was charged 122 times for the new software, adding up to a final bill of $3,878. Other users on the Apple Support forums are reporting similar problems.
"Apple blames PayPal, PayPal blames Apple," John Christman, who's now down nearly four grand, writes in an email. "They both are claiming to investigate, but I am stuck broke for three days now." Another commenter chips in, "They charged me 4 times."
PayPal and Apple are blaming each other, according to another reader, with seemingly no clear way to resolve the issue. Apple seems to be blaming the issue on a high volume of downloads -- an email a commenter claims to have received from Apple reads:
"As you can imagine, with the launch of the new OS X Lion, our system has experienced a higher than normal volume of traffic. This has caused some irregularities within the Mac App Store, including with our automated billing system. Please know that Apple is aware of the issue and is currently working towards a resolution."
That's not much consolation when customers' bank accounts are being hit with overdraft charges as huge amounts are taken. And even once Apple refunds the amount, PayPal seems to be making people wait until it has withdrawn the cash from their bank balance, and then refunding it into their PayPal account.
Commenter JustinIowa complains, "This process is going to make me have overdraft fees and also miss a payment with my debt consolidator."
Waiting for PayPal to refund the money into your PayPal account and then withdrawing that cash into your bank account can take days, during which time customers will be without that cash.
"My mortgage is due in 2 days, and thanks to them, I don't have the money," Christman adds.
The chaos is more bad news for PayPal. On Tuesday hacker collective Anonymous called for a boycott of the service, which is owned by eBay, for freezing donations to WikiLeaks last year, and, Anonymous claims, helping law enforcement to track down hackers.
Have you been charged multiple times downloading Lion? Who's to blame here? Let us know in the comments section, or on our Facebook wall.
Image credit: MacRumors