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Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

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Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#51

Post by usefulcat »

tiffanyh wrote: post #34

I don’t want to minimize the pain people experience here, but it’s worth calling out just how hard this problem is for retailers and issuers. Gift cards are the #1 fraud vector in payments ... because it lets stolen cards be converted into a cash-like equivalent with zero traceability. So fraud/risk system are highly sensitive to gift cards. It's not an excuse, but I see in this thread people minimizing the problem a…

> it’s worth calling out just how hard this problem is for retailers and issuers.

I'm having a hard time finding much sympathy. They could always, oh I don't know.. maybe just not sell gift cards? Or have a much lower maximum amount?

I mean yeah, you could take the view that technically the blame really lies with the people trying to use gift cards for theft, but that's not going to be productive.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#54

Post by halapro »

wackget wrote: post #50

I feel like all these articles are writing about the wrong thing. Yeah, it sucks that the guy's account got banned, and yeah, maybe we can't trust gift cards. But the truly troublesome issue is how an entire ecosystem of (very expensive) hardware is allowed to be tied to an identity controlled by a giant black box of a corporation. What I mean is: you can spend thousands and thousands on devices and configure them to…

This is something governments should really try to tackle, but I'm afraid that their solution would be a government ID rather than proper guidance and rules for these behemoths.

The way I see it resolved is for Google and Apple to link the accounts to a physical person via government ID so that if you want issues to be resolved you'd have to verify yourself. This would also limit abuse by bad parties.

Now, do you want all of your web accounts be linked to your government ID?

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#55

Post by kelnos »

tiffanyh wrote: post #34

I don’t want to minimize the pain people experience here, but it’s worth calling out just how hard this problem is for retailers and issuers. Gift cards are the #1 fraud vector in payments ... because it lets stolen cards be converted into a cash-like equivalent with zero traceability. So fraud/risk system are highly sensitive to gift cards. It's not an excuse, but I see in this thread people minimizing the problem a…

I'm not sympathetic to this point at all. As Patrick McKenzie says, "the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero"[0]. Yes, fraud causes problems for retailers and issuers. But in cases like this one, the result of overreactions and incorrect handling of fraud is severe, mostly-intractable problems for customers. Customers who end up having very little or no recourse.

McKenzie's point is more about how businesses need to accept a certain level of fraud because trying to stamp all of it out will be more expensive and more damaging than allowing some of it. But I'd go further than that: companies should be required to accept some amount of fraud in order to avoid harming their legitimate customers. It should be just another cost of doing business.

[0] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#56

Post by ryandrake »

estimator7292 wrote: post #15
DannyPage wrote: post #14

> Update 18 December 2025: We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obvi…

Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse. You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.

What I want to know is why does it always have to go straight from 0 to 100? There's seemingly no concept of proportion. For most online services, your account can be in one of two states: Totally good and "banned for life". There's no warning, no investigative period, no concept of scale (was the fraud $10 or $10,000?), no way to serve your time and come back if you actually were bad. It's just instant, silent BAN HAMMER.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#57

Post by ndriscoll »

sigseg1v wrote: post #22
oidar wrote: post #7

I'm glad that got resolved for Paris, but what the hell is a normal person supposed to do. Not every one has that kind of public reach to get a satisfactory resolution. First he had understand what happened technically, then he needed a public platform to tell people about it, then that writing needed to get reposted by others, than PR needed to get involved. Not something that's going to happen for a normal user. Ap…

Agreed. A situation similar to this happened to me with Steam over a payment issue with their service. They banned me even though I had thousands of dollars of games and an account since Sept 2003. I had to go to my bank and escalate multiple times to get letters providing the info steam wanted about my account and credit card to prove it was legitimate. Eventually after contacting them enough times they said they wo…

They've made it clear that you don't own your cloud library, so the only reasonable answer is to never pay for something with DRM you cannot remove (including things that require an online account for functionality you consider important), and treat services like Steam as a temporary convenience to download known good files that you then fix to remove any DRM. If you only treat these services as a download tool, their ban loses all teeth.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#59

Post by raverbashing »

sneak wrote: post #27
Apreche wrote: post #18

The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. Even if they have real humans to talk to, they simply follow a script. Those agents do not have the ability to investigate a situation or the power to use their discretion to take meaningful action. We should impose, by law, the following rules on all companies that offer accounts to their customers. 1. If they…

> The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. No, the real problem is that we have no reasonable alternatives when companies misbehave. There is no meaningful way to exist in society today without an Apple or Google account, and that's actually insane. It's doubly insane for people who aren't citizens of the United States (although the CCP addressed this…

This is the naive tech bro view

You can't keep chasing alternatives when companies misbehave

That's why there's a thick list of contract law precedents and consumer's rights and what not

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#60

Post by ghjv »

regardless of the resolution of Paris' case, at this point I doubt sincerely I will ever willingly purchase an Apple gift card. To be frank, most gift cards are persona non grata for myself and ~all discerning consumers I know
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