Roger Fingas
For reasons unknown, Apple has stopped offering the ability to send Apple Store or iTunes gift cards via email from its U.S. website.
Americans can continue to buy gift cards via regular mail, but have to turn to third-party websites for the email option, MacRumors noted on Tuesday. People in countries like Canada, Australia, and the U.K. can still send email cards from Apple.com.
Where still available, the company's online card system lets people pick a recipient, message, card design, and value.
One possibility is that Apple is revamping the system, simply beginning with the U.S. It might alternately be planning to phase out email cards in favor of some better solution, though there's no indication what that might be.
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
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7 Comments
Doomed! Steve Jobs would never have allowed this!
Possibly because iTunes gift cards are being used as currency by scammers.
Could be because of this: http://www.mytwintiers.com/news/local-news/apple-warns-consumers-of-itunes-gift-card-scams .
Recently read of people (old? confused?) who were convinced by phone fraud artists to purchase iTunes gift cards to pay off supposed property tax liens. I don't know who would believe that kind of story — "I've got a friend in the tax department, and he can fix this if you can get him some cash through a trusted method...." — but evidently some people did, and friends and families of the confused and ripped off have been trying to pressure Apple (really!) to refund the legitimate gift card purchase by the confused individuals.
Evidently it's been going on in at least Canada and the US.