Comment by xp84

It wasn't a sketchy retailer though, it was one Apple has authorized through its handpicked affiliate (in the US, this is probably Blackhawk who basically owns the third-party-giftcard-sales business).

For Apple to say "Don't buy gift cards from our authorized retailers, or prepare to face incredibly harsh consequences due to fraud that you can't detect or predict" while continuing to sell them through those channels is morally bankrupt and completely unacceptable.

I have no doubt fraud is a big problem. It is for all gift cards. But this is a 3 trillion dollar company -- and they make minimum 30% of every gift card sold in pure profit. If they can't secure those channels without torpedoing innocent customers' entire digital lives, they need to drop that channel.