How to Talk to a Live Person at Apple

Apr 16, 2010 - 37 Comments

How to talk to a human live person at Apple

So you called Apple’s main number at 1-800-692-7753 (1-800-MY-APPLE) and you’re getting lost in a maze of automated menus with a robot who attempts to direct your call, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Wouldn’t it be nice to talk to a real human being who can help, rather than a phone robot?

If you’re frustrated and trying to talk to a real life living breathing person at Apple’s number, we’ve got four specific tricks to try when you encounter the automated voice robot answering service that should connect you to a human with a pulse working for Apple.

4 Ways to Actually Talk to a Human Being at Apple

OK so you don’t want to talk to a robot and you’re not interested in navigating a maze of options and menu numbers and infinite confusing phone menus driven by a phone call center robot… you want to talk to a real live human being at Apple, let’s cover four ways you can accomplish this quickly:

Talk to a human being at Apple or applecare

Talk to a Person at Apple, Trick 1:

Press 0 repeatedly. Eventually, you should be transferred to a person (yes a real person!). This trick works for most automated phone systems, since 0 usually goes the ‘operator’ or a support person.

Talk to a Human at Apple, Trick 2

Tell the answering phone robot that you want to talk to customer service by saying “Customer Service” repeatedly.

Talk to a Human at Apple, Trick 3

Another goofy trick is the gibberish trick. When the automated phone robot fails to understand you, it often sends you to a person immediately. Thus, if you speak gibberish when asked what to do by the phone robot and you might immediately be redirected to a human being.

You can also tell the phone auto robot and say something like “Customer Service Representative” and then follow it up with some gibberish, for example:

After the robot answers, wait for him to get to his first break and say “Customer Service Representative.” The robot will confirm that he’ll soon place you in touch with a real human being. He’ll then ask you to clarify what topic you’re calling about. Do not respond with a topic… [instead] say something strange. Something like “Gallupping Butterflies” or “Indigenous Bicycle Dinosaurs.” Make sure that your topic cannot be understand by Mr. Roboto. Once you’ve stymied him, he’ll finally forward you to a real customer service representative.

This helpful tidbit of information is brought to us from TUAW, where the original poster must have had some recent frustrating experience with trying to talk to a real human at Apple.

Talk to an Apple Human Trick 4:

For what it’s worth, I’ve found that if you call Apple’s Technical Support (Apple Care) number directly at 1-800-275-2273, you are almost always immediately speaking to a human, so if you’re having technical problems that might be a better solution than trying to trip up a mechanical bot at their generic 800 number.

Talking to a person is often the most easy and helpful way to resolve a technical issue, or any matter with your Apple account, ordering, sales, shipping, whatever. Apple support reps are usually really great and well trained, and should be able to help you quickly.

Do you have a trick to talk to a person quickly at Apple support or sales numbers? Let us know in the comments!

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Posted by: Manish Patel in Tips & Tricks, Troubleshooting

37 Comments

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  1. Kojo yeboh says:

    Recover my I’d password

  2. Janet says:

    I cannot access Chat because the form does not recognise my serial number. This is rubbish. I am stranded overseas and the 1800 number will not work. I need to phone a landline in Australia. Apple only publicises 1300 numbers for there. (Something went wrong with my Apple ID after I installed the Mojave OS upgrade on my Macbook.)

  3. Martha H. Smith says:

    I repeatedly get phone calls on my stationary non-Apple phone (401-461-****) telling me there is illegal activity occurring on my Apple acct but I can never reach a human at Apple Support to tell them and ask for a remedy. Are these warning calls talking about my Mac computer which I own or my Apple I Phone which my out-of-state daughter owns? Waited 8 mins on hold to speak to an Apple Support person til my phone went dead. This is a very unresponsive company and makes me sorry i have a Mac computer and Iphone. Makes Consumer Cellular look more appealing every day. Martha H. Smith

    • Paul says:

      That sounds like a scam, do not answer any call like that and do not give anyone any personal information about you over the phone. That applies to most things, there are a lot of scams out there and so you have to be skeptical.

      If you are worried about your Apple account, you should always contact Apple directly at their official phone numbers which you can find at https://www.apple.com/contact/

  4. Ethel Stuckey says:

    When trying to retrieve my E-mail messages a blank screen appears titled “select messages to delete or move”. What should I do to see my messages?

  5. Reese says:

    What’s always worked for me with these cell phone companies is asking to “speak to retention” or simply “I’d like to be transferred to someone who can cancel my account pls” 9.99% of the time, the NEXT voice you hear will be able to resolve your issue in order to “keep you as a valued customer”🙄 However, you gotta know when to follow the “threat” of canceling/bluffing ALL THE WAY THRU & when you’ve bluffed enough. This usually works WELL for me! God bless🙏🏾 & good luck!🤞🏾

  6. Claire says:

    I am trying to download google pod on my phone but it is saying that my apple and iTunes is disabled but it not how can I sort it

  7. Madison says:

    Apple sucks. How can no one speak to a real person?

  8. Pete says:

    Tried to get MY cash returned from my apple account- was handled by a AI ‘advisor’ called ‘jesus’ however, after apple refused point blank to return my cash, whatever verbal abuse i slung, I always got the same ‘stock’ email in reply.
    Perhaps apple should print a warning on their ‘gift’ cards that once activated, any unused money in your account is as good as lost forever !

  9. Pam Cameron says:

    I owed an iPhone 5s four years ago that was with an android. I purchased an iPad last Christmas and was informed that I needed to know the passcode and password to the old iPhone in order to activate the iPad. I gave the iPad away because I could not get any one at an Apple Store to stand still long enough to resolve the problem. I requested assistance resetting the password and passcode so I could use the iPad. The representative looked at me and walked away helping ten other people. Then they came back and asked me if the issue was resolved? I said hello do you think that you could possibly help me reset the password and passcode for the iPad because I no longer owned the iPhone and hadn’t for three years. Again they walked off. I went through this process never getting any help for four hours with real people who have difficulty understanding a valid question. Again I gave, for free the iPad away. Now I own two iPhones purchased a few months ago and after the latest update the two iPhones are being locked up because the system is requiring a password and passcode from an iPad I no longer own and it is connected to a phone number I no longer have access to because I changed my phone number when I bought the phone’s.

    I don’t believe it would matter if you asked the robot a valid question or a nonsense question because Apple is so big that they don’t care about the amount of grief they put their customer through they will continue to sell the product.

    I would go back to the Apple Store but I cannot forget the experience from the last encounter where I had to have the iPad and old iPhone 5s removed from my account after sitting for five hours talking to five people while walking out believing the old phone number, old phone, and non existent iPad were not going to be an issue in the future. And then I woke up to the reality that Apple products are removed, replaced, and yes sometimes thrown in the garbage when they are no longer useful.

  10. Christine Charles says:

    I have had a problem logging into iTunes. I rang Apple tech support for assistance. I was holding for 40mins and was starting to loose the will. I then saw the time was 6pm the time the lines close. Oh after holding all that time. I will be changing my phone soon. I definitely won’t choose Apple a complete waste of time.

  11. Brian says:

    Hi I lost my iPhone 7 two weeks ago I purchased a new iPhone 8 Plus with obviously a different number I am trying to get into my old email account but asking for authorisation called but they’ve sent it to my old number can someone help many thanks

  12. Sophie says:

    I’m trying to log into my Apple ID using my iPhone 6 and, its saying I need a verification from my old phone iPhone se but it’s broken so I can’t do anything please help.

  13. Sophie says:

    My iPhone 6 is asking for a verification from my other phone it’s and iPhone se and my iPhone se won’t turn on so I can’t do anything about it

  14. Aakash says:

    My iPhone 6s goes in disable mode. How to enable it?

  15. Jessica Helligas says:

    I like to know about my track number because I don’t have it

  16. Ethan says:

    Works!! 😊

  17. Sarah says:

    I just used these tricks and they worked after a half hour of fighting with the automated system! Unfortunately, after another 15 minutes of web searching for my problem while I was on hold I was finally able to find the solution. Itunes drives me nuts sometimes, and I was so disappointed in the level of customer care I received today. Thank you so much for this post though, I’ll take these tricks with me on future problematic customer service calls!

  18. Kiamonster says:

    Hi I need to make mc videos with air shou please I need to or I’ll go crazy please I really need it please please
    Please

  19. Wendy says:

    Thanks for the advice! Works great!

  20. Cindy says:

    This worked great thank you

  21. Ahmed says:

    Who can I change iOS on ipad2

  22. Tylor says:

    Listen here, yall are not allowing my card to be processed this needs to be fixed right now.I am having difficulty and I’m not liking it.Yall make me want to android the Samsun phone so I want have to put up with yalls Inconvience with my debit card.

    • Durfff says:

      Tylor, why don’t you contact APPLE and not rant on the internet at a totally unrelated website? What is that going to do for you? Your problem is with APPLE or your credit card company, and here you are, on the internet, on an unrelated website that has nothing to do with either of those, complaining.

      Or maybe read the freaking article about how to talk to a live person at the actual Apple company. Posting comments on websites and the internet you may as well be shouting into the wind.

  23. denise says:

    I hate hate Apple. in Australia Telstra is generally considered to be the worst company. Apple make them look good. I am too exhausted from dealing with them to even give details. They should claim to have after sales service. Apple Care is Apple torture.

  24. jackee says:

    I have bought numerous songs from the itunes store Nd im stiil.not able to make any of them my ringtones on my iphone 4

  25. pat says:

    i hate apple but i cant get anything but an iPhone the customer support took forever

  26. Henry says:

    The customer service is terrible. I wanted them to put the credits on my credit card, but they put it back on the gift card. So then I called them and complained, but they just hung up on me, so forget Apple.

  27. perle says:

    Nice job just a bit of a long wait but you guys are brilliant!

  28. ep says:

    haha! brilliant! thanks

  29. PJ says:

    worked like a charm!

  30. Sawyer says:

    I purchased a lot of songs on my itunes and my computer crashed and I formatted my computer and it deleted all of the files and my itunes. I put itunes back on my computer but i don’t know how to get my purchased songs back onto my computer. please help

  31. Gao Chee Yang says:

    I have an iPhone 3G or 3GS I heard that it’s not real from
    China. But yeah, my iPhone I found it, and it was low battery like to three percent, then, I guess it charged it until it was just ten percent, so then I decided to reset everything, and, I waited forever for it to do everything it had to do, and so when I kept waiting all I saw was it just kept flashing on and off then it’d show me the low battery sign again, and, I just don’t know what to do.

    • Wendy says:

      This is a site to show you how to reach customer service by phone. Don’t look for answers here to your other questions.

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