I recently bought my wife her first Apple device, an iPad A16, for her digital art projects. We set up a new Apple account and purchased a specific app she wanted, plus installed Netflix and Hulu. She used the iPad for about 20-30 minutes, trying out her new app and uninstalling some unnecessary apps. The next morning, we found that she had to sign in again, but encountered an "unknown error" after entering her password. Although we can still use the apps we downloaded, we can't download anything new. When we tried signing in at iCloud.com, we discovered that her account was locked for security reasons. We submitted an unlock request, but it got denied. Now we can't even try to request an unlock again; entering her email and password just shows a message that her account is locked. I reached out to Apple support, and they suggested that removing the activation lock "might" help, but we can't sign in to request that, nor can we ask for a refund for our initial purchase. If anyone has any ideas or solutions, we would really appreciate it!
5 Answers
Make sure to check the countries involved. Sometimes, issues arise if the iPad is bought in one country and the payment card is from another—this can trigger security flags for trade sanctions or fraud.
Try signing into your account on a desktop computer. It might provide a different interface that allows you to see more options, even if the account seems locked everywhere else.
Did you pay with Apple gift cards? That can sometimes cause complications with account setups and might be why your account got locked.
You need to contact Apple support for help. The only way to remove the Activation Lock is through a support request that doesn’t require a working Apple Account. Unfortunately, you won't be able to do it through iCloud.com.
Same situation happened to me recently! My new iCloud account got locked after a few hours, and now I'm stuck waiting for a response about removing the activation lock. It’s frustrating, especially when no one seems to know why this happens.
I tried that too, but I got the same error. Looks like the account is truly locked on all devices.