u/bigtimezay

I'm pretty tech savvy, but I'm not an IT or MDM guy.

We have a fleet of 10 iPads for our sales team. Before I knew anything about MDM, I figured I'd just set each one up individually with its own iCloud account using our business domains.

Big mistake.

Apple flagged it as fraud because multiple "personal" Apple IDs were being created from the same IP with similar domains/phone numbers. They locked 7 of our iPads.

The only way to get them back was multiple escalations, waiting 2-3 business days between responses, and sending Verizon receipts over and over to prove we actually owned the devices. I eventually gave up because I didn't have time to keep fighting support. Those iPads are literally sitting on a shelf and I just bought new ones instead.

So I learned my lesson.
I enrolled in Apple Business Manager.
That was another adventure.

• Business verification took 1-2 weeks because we have multiple domains.
• Then Business Connect needed separate approval.
• Tons of documentation.
• Hours on the phone with support because I entered our second business number and not the one on DUNS Broadsheet.

Once that was finally setup, I tried Apple Configurator on my MacBook. Could never get it to work consistently. After two escalations and several more hours on the phone, someone at Apple finally told me the iPhone Configurator app is much more reliable for enrolling iPads than the Mac version.

Finally...

I got 3 new iPads enrolled correctly with ABM, blueprints configured, everything working perfectly.

A few months later (yesterday) one of my reps tells me he can't access our shared company folder anymore.

I log into Apple Business Manager.

"Your account has been locked. Contact Support."

Call support.

First rep has no idea.

Second-level support tells me: "When Apple Business Manager and Business Connect merged, your account was one of the ones that didn't make it through."

Me: "For what reason?"

Apple: "No reason. Sorry."

That's it.

Now the only solution is to factory reset every enrolled iPad and re-enroll them from scratch. No remote fix. No recovery. Nothing.

I have sales reps in multiple states, so now I either have to fly around with a MacBook or ship devices back and forth just because Apple's backend broke.

No apology beyond "sorry." No credit. No gift card. No acknowledgement that this cost our business -- and me -- time and money.

TL;DR: Apple Business Manager has probably been one of the most frustrating business tools I've ever dealt with. If you're a small business owner who isn't an MDM expert, seriously consider paying someone who does this for a living. It would've been cheaper than the hours I've lost.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? Is this just unbelievably bad luck, or is ABM really this painful for small to mid-sized businesses?