by Jason Snell
Apple-repaired phone banned from social media
Finn Voorhees broke his iPhone screen and Apple fixed it. All of a sudden he was banned from Snapchat:
After restoring from a backup and beginning to log back into all my accounts, I encountered an unexpected problem. When trying to log in to Snapchat, I received an “SS06: Device Banned” error message. This was surprising, as I had no issues signing in on a different device. According to Snapchat’s support documentation, the SS06 error code indicates that the device has been banned due to abuse or repeated violations of their Community Guidelines. The support document also stated that Snapchat Support cannot unban a device once it has been banned.
I began to suspect that Apple had given me a refurbished iPhone as a replacement, and the previous owner had been banned for violating Snapchat’s guidelines. Searching the web led me to various forum posts from people who had been banned for posting pictures of illegal drugs, and contacting Snapchat support led to automated messages saying I was banned for violating guidelines and they cannot lift device bans.
A wild story. Snapchat shouldn’t be doing this, but Apple should probably also start laundering the IDs of refurbished phones.