My Experience With "Your Purchase Could Not Be Completed"

Question

About two months ago, the Apple store hit me with the, "Your Purchase Could Not Be Completed" message when I tried to rent a movie. I tried the obvious remediation steps, like switching the credit card, changing the device, and even trying a different Apple ID. Nothing worked. I contacted Support, and initially, I was told that I violated one of the T&Cs in the Apple Store agreement. I pressed a bit on Support because I was confused (what did I do wrong?), and then I received a message to try my purchase again in 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, the problem went away. Hurray!
Since then, I have run into the problem perhaps 15 times. Each time, I have contacted Support, and each time, I am told to wait for 30 minutes as the appropriate changes had been made to my account. I've asked, but so far, I haven't received an answer to my question about the core of the problem.
One thing to add -- when the problem pops up, usually one week after the previous occasion, the problem affects every device and Apple ID in the house. I wonder if the problem is related to me.
When this probem first occured, there were very few mentions of it on the Internet. Now, two months later, there are 2 pages of Google hits.
I hope this helps! Hopefully the good folks at Apple get enough support calls that they triage this weird problem.
Good luck from me, my MBP, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and iMac!
paul

Answer 1

usually the message says something like "your purchase could not be completed. for assistance contact itunes support"
in any case, doing so is going to be the best thing / http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/