Earl and I successfully downloaded a song from iTunes this evening and the ordeal left me shaking my head.
The accomplishment took some major teamwork, as well as talks with not one but two Apple customer support representatives. But I now have Tom Petty’s “Wildfl owers” saved to my computer. I think it was the hardest I have ever worked to spend $1.29.
We are not iTunes kind of people. We listen to old fashioned things like CDs and the radio. Earl has an iTunes account because one of the kids gave him a gift card a few Christmasesago. He never used it, so I purchased a couple of iPad apps for the youngest grandson and downloaded one song a year and a half ago for my niece’s wedding. Other than that, we’d kind of forgotten about it.
The forgotten part was the rub. When I tried to download a song this evening, neither of us could remember the password. We tried the “reset password” button, but each time we clicked the link, a message popped up that said our session had timed out. We started again and typed faster. After a half dozen tries we fi nally beat the clock. He logged on to his email account and followed the link to reset the password. He then went back to the couch and I went back to iTunes.
The new password didn’t work either and, after a few botched attempts to log in, a message popped up that said, due to security reasons, the password must be reset. He followed the same process he’d just completed to choose another password and went back to the couch.
I got a little farther into the purchase process this time. But wait, since it was the first time the account had been accessed from that particular device, the security questions would have to be answered. I guessed at his favorite sports team, then yelled across the room and asked him what his childhood nickname had been. He said he’d never had one. I said he must have answered the question at some point. I tried tohelp him maybe stir some memories by making nickname suggestions. This assistance was not appreciated. I typed in “Earl” and told it to continue, but it wouldn’t. It wanted my husband’s childhood nickname and it wanted it now.
Due to the impasse, I clicked the link to get help for those who couldn’t remember the answers to the security questions. Several lines of information were required. His cell phone rang within a few seconds. It was Apple customer service. They asked if they were speaking to Earl. I quickly got him off the couch and handed him the phone and told him to say yes.
They would not talk to me because it was not my iTunes account. I put his phone on speaker so I could follow the steps on the computer while he received the instructions. After a few more steps thatincluded being passed on to a second representative who had the power to unlock the account, we were almost ready to fi nish the download.
To double check that we weren’t trying to hack into someone else’s account, the representative needed the serial number of the device first used to activate the account.
We have two iPhones, an iPad, a laptop and a desk computer. We didn’t know which we used fi rst, and if we had to locate all the serial numbers, we told her, she’d have to walk us through that, too. With the phone on speaker, we could both talk. Two against one worked in our favor.
“Look, this account has a balance of $3.74. Do you really think we might be trying to access it if it isn’t ours?” I asked.
She seemed to understand the ridiculousnessand said she would unlock the security questions but we’d have to answer new ones. By this point, she seemed in a rush to get off the phone with us. The feeling was mutual.
We logged back on to iTunes and proceeded to download the song that got this entire time-wasting ball rolling. We chose new security questions and entered answers.
Finally, at last, the song was downloaded, but not before we were asked once again to prove we knew the answers to security question we’d just chosen.
Now the account balance is $2.45. Earl says they can keep it.
Annette Rowe is a freelance writer from rural Gentry and a speechlanguage pathologist at Siloam Springs High School. She may be reached by email at [email protected].
Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/02/2013