Apple Overcharges For Mac OS X Lion Update

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When Apple announced that they would be selling the update version of Mac OS X Lion for just $29, many folks applauded Apple and said that was a great deal for a new major update to an operating system. But, it wasn’t a great deal for Mr. John Christman. He purchase Mac OS X Lion on July 23^rd, but rather than just being charged once for the new operating system, he was charged 122 times, spending almost $3,878.40 from his PayPal account. Yikes!

Although the exact cause of this problem isn’t known yet, Christman told blog MacRumors that he believes it is related to the new iCloud feature in iTunes that will restore apps on a fresh installation of an OS or a new computer. He told that blog:

I fresh installed Lion, because the upgrade caused a lot of problems. My system needed as fresh start anyway.

I logged into our developer account and got the latest iTunes Beta, and installed it. iTunes has a cool new feature to download all your purchased apps for you. I clicked download all.

As each download started it charged me $31.79. Some apps came fast, some took longer, but the timing was directly related to when a new app started to download.

According to Christman, he contacted both Apple and PayPal. Both tech giants blamed each other for the 121 excess charges. Christman told PayPal to dispute the 121 extra charges, and while the 121 extra payments are marked as ‘refunded’, Christman’s PayPal balance still isn’t up the $3,878.40 he’s owed.

This is unfortunate for Christman, who’s apparently an app developer (hence his mention of an developer account for iTunes) and might use PayPal as his primary bank account. He tells MacRumors that he’s “stuck broke” and added “My mortgage is due in 2 days, and thanks to them, I don’t have the money.”

It’s unfortunate for all involved. Hopefully it’s resolved quickly, but Christman isn’t even the only victim of this. Other users across the internet have reported the same issue, although I think Christman may be the record for the most number of excess charges. Hopefully Apple and PayPal can get this sorted quickly.