Rotten Apple

Problems setting up an iTunes account for Apple TV Home sharing

Your credit card was declined. Please enter valid credit card information

In order to use my new Apple TV, I have to obtain an iTunes Store account. Now the fun starts.

Initially I attempt to setup the account directly within iTunes [latest revision available]. My standard credit card is refused with no detailed explanation, repeatedly. So I try another credit card, same problem. Three known good credit cards later and I still can’t setup the account. “Your credit card was declined. Please enter valid credit card information”.

I will not be beaten, I want to play with my new toy. What can be going wrong? It then dawned on me that there were no specific fields for “Name as on credit card”, only the ”’Title”’, ”’Forename”’ and ”’Surname”’ fields on the general form. The name on all of the failed credit cards has no title, eg: “B Smith”.

Could it be Apple are using a composite of the ”’Title”’ ”’Forename”’ ”’Surname”’ fields to send to the credit card company for name validation? Let’s try a credit card that includes the title in the name “Mr B Smith”. Success! It works. Of course, the title is a compulsory field so it can’t be blank, as it is on my 3 credit cards. Oh dear Apple. Seems like we didn’t test that one very thoroughly.

Of course, there is no simple feedback method to inform Apple of this ridiculous problem, so until Apple sort this madness out, if you are unable to setup an iTunes Store account, try a credit card that contains a salutation in the name.