In March Daniel downloaded two tracks from iTunes that wouldn’t play. He re-downloaded them several times and complained to customer service, getting several free downloads as a result, but the problem persisted. It took nearly the entire year for iTunes pull the tracks offline, he says.

Daniel writes:

On March 12 of 2009 I reported to the iTunes support department that two tracks I had purchased through iTunes had audio corruption in them. After working with the iTunes support staff they said the file was flagged for investigation.

I contacted iTunes support again on April 30th as I hadn’t heard back regarding the issue, and was given a refund for the album and told again to check back later.

I contacted iTunes support for a third time on September 9th, 2009. Was issued five free song credits to attempt to download and purchase the songs again to see if the issue persisted, and it did.

On September 10th I was contacted by a member of iTunes support and issued 4 more song credits. And by the 16th of September they had finally confirmed that yes, the files were still damaged, and replacement copies were requested.

I was contacted again on the 30th of September to attempt to re-download the songs, and confirmed that they still had the same corruption.

I was then contacted again the 17th of October to be informed that the issue was still being looked into, and I would be updated when a change had occurred on the status of the case.

On the 13th of November, I was finally informed that the tracks had been removed from iTunes, replacement copies had been ordered and once again five more free song credits.

On January 3rd I reached out to iTunes support to determine the status and was told once again that the request has been made and they have no further updates on the issue. It was clarified that at this point there was no more information that I could be provided with, and when the songs are replaced, they are replaced. At this point it feels more like an if.

Really what concerns me most of all is having reported the songs being damaged on March 12th, and they weren’t removed from the iTunes store until November 13th. How many other people may have purchased these songs that were damaged and not have the same tenacity as I for complaining?

Is anyone else jealous of Daniel’s problem? I wouldn’t mind all the free tracks as I was left hanging.

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