Purchased Music Download... Frozen for over 12 hours!

Question

Album: Pinoy Ako
Songs: 14
Price: $9.99
11:50PM - Purchased 2 Singles and Album with iTMS $15 card. Balance is now $0.90
11:52PM - The 2 singles and 4 (out of 14) album songs downloaded. Downloading is frozen. I rebooted the computer, many times. Same result!
iTunes displays, "Downloading 1 of 10 Laklak". Bar stopped at approximately 40%. Laklak is a 3 minute 9 second song! The bar does not move and no more songs are downloading.
At around 2:30AM, I sent my FIRST E-Mail message to iTMS customer support, and got rewarded with an auto-reply letter. No human response!
At around 7:30AM, I sent my SECOND E-Mail message to iTMS customer support, and got rewarded my second auto-reply letter. This time, I've asked for a refund... For 4 out of 14 songs purchased for $9.99+tax, I should be refunded $2.85+tax. Still no human response! I turned off the computer at 7:45AM.
At 11:45AM, Seattle Local Time, I turned on the computer, and started up iTunes. Sure enough, iTunes offered to look for Purchased music, and surprise: "Downloading 1 of 10 Laklak" Downloading Bar permanently frozen at approximately 40%. The bar stops below the letter "w" in "Downloading".
Balance is $0.90... $7.14 LOSS and NO Human Response from Apple!
This album is on my dad's account. He is 70 Years Old, so I am configuring his iPod Shuffle. Unfortunately, iTunes Music Store gives a BAD impression to my 70 Year Old Father.
I have written Apple, demanding the refund... Also, I have stated that I will NOT make any further purchases in iTMS unless I get a refund. I have purchased videos such as Law & Order SVU, Conviction, Blade, A-Team, and Knight Rider. I guess I paid Apple too much money to fill up my 30GB Video iPod.
My Dad's computer is a Intel Mac Mini (Single Core) with iPod Shuffle.
My computer is an iBook G4 with 30GB Video iPod.
My internet connection is 5Mbps DSL. (A 3-minute song in iTMS should not take 12 hours to download!)
Does anyone have a phone number to iTunes Music Store? Sending E-Mail to their customer support is wasting my time. (Allocated 2 hours, not 14 hours!) I plan to Snapshot the screen and post it on my .Mac web page, or better yet, make a podcast of the Frozen Download... Somebody in Apple must know that this was my 1st Album purchase and that I will start advertising Album downloading feature of iTunes is not stable. In fact, once a download is frozen, no other "Protected" downloads can happen.
iTMS should charge ONLY when 100% of the music was successfully downloaded, not before. Can't buy anything for $0.90! Over the past 12 hours, I paid $2.01 for each of the 7 songs I have downloaded and they are NOT videos!
Last time I had a frozen download was in April 2006... That only lasted about two (2) hours. And Apple responded to E-Mail within 30 minutes.
Anyone have any ideas on how to get a refund from Apple?
iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   AMD Sempron Laptop (SUSE Linux 10), Dell Inspron Laptop (Ubuntu Linux), Nokia 770

Answer 1

There is no phone number for the iTunes Music Store;
the web form is the only contact. Give them a bit of
time; you just contacted them late last night, and it
often takes them 72 hours to respond. And their first
response (once you get through the automated replies
is very unlikely to be a refund; more likely they'll
offer suggestions as to how to get the downloads to
work.
On that subject, here are a couple of things for you
to check:
- make sure that your father's system has the latest
version of QuickTime and iTunes;
- check to see if your father's system has any sort
of download/web accelerator. Those almost always
cause problems with the iTunes Music Store.
and of course check with his Internet service
provider to make sure they're not having router
problem, as has sometimes been the case (one recent
one in, I believe, Canada caused all sorts of problem
for iTMS users and it wasn't Apple's fault at all).
Good luck getting it all sorted out.
My Dad's Computer: intel Mac Mini (Single Core)
Before starting up iTunes on my dad's computer, I had to remove his expired .Mac account and perform a software upgrade to 10.4.7. The computer had all the software updates performed by 11pm Tuesday night. His account is a regular account and my account on the computer is an Admin account.
iTunes 6.0.5 (20) on the Intel Mac Mini. Software Update says there are no more software updates.
My dad's iTMS account is a different account from what I am using. I use my iBook G4 right next to my dad's Mac Mini. Both computers are running iTunes. Both computer have fast connections through 5Mbps DSL.
On my dad's computer, I have the Apple firewall disabled and the DSL router configured as DMZ to that computer. iTMS fails to download everything that was purchased.
Considering that the firewalls are not the problem, I restored the firewalls.
On my iBook G4, my iTunes work fine, I can download the Free stuff from iTMS. I will not make a purchase until my Dad's iTMS account gets all the songs.
On the Mac Mini, another song downloaded after restarting iTunes three more times.
I think there is a BUG within iTunes... It does NOT timeout and does NOT display any errors. Also, there is NO way to skip a song and have it download later. The downloading sequence is permanent, set by the billing computer.
The downloads stop at the same point, the bar stops just below the "w" in "Downloading".
I wont have my dad's computer for too much longer... If I don't get any resolutions BEFORE my dad gets his computer back, I will just DISABLE iTMS on his iTunes, because this Apple problems are too much for a 70 year old man to deal with. I will teach him how to rip CD music into iTunes and have him put the music onto his iPod Shuffle.
In the Business World, TIME is precious... 72 hours can make or break a deal. In this matter, the Lack of Customer Support in a timely fashion can mean the Loss of another Customer. --- Maybe, by the time Apple does respond, I will answer them, "I fixed the problem and stopped using iTunes Music Store. We are now getting music by ripping audio CDs."