This is a strange one… someone is telling me she needs an Apple gift card to “update” her phone. Says the phone is saying to put the gift card number in to it. Complicating things is she is in Ghana right now… I guess my question is might this be a thing in a foreign country?
Almost certainly a scam in a foreign country! Gift card requests are a classic way of anonymously obtaining relatively small amounts of money from people.
In any case, there should be no need to “upgrade” an iPhone other than via system settings.
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Definitely a scam.
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100% a scam. Extricate yourself from this conversation.
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Do you know this person? I assume not. Any stranger asking you for any form of money for any reason should immediately be assumed to be a scammer unless you have solid evidence proving otherwise.
And Apple never requires money to update anything. Apple system software (on all platforms) has been free for quite a long time. Since Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) on the Mac platform, and has always been free on all other platforms (iPhone, iPad, iPod, Watch, TV, etc.) And App Store upgrades are also free - the App Store only wants payment to purchase an app prior to the first time you install it. Once you’ve purchased it, you can upgrade it and install it on all your devices with no additional payment.
That having been said, if you don’t have a credit card on file in your Apple account (which may be common in some places), then you need to use gift cards in order to make purchases. This is the case for my account - I’ve never supplied a card and have (so far) never needed to supply one. I occasionally buy gift cards and keep a small balance in my account, which I use for those app/in-app purchases I occasionally make.
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