> Strangely, he did tell me to only ever buy gift cards from Apple themselves

The Singapore Apple exec person who eventually reported the issue fixed provided the above advice, and I think it is the best advice given to anyone in this entire situation.

What can a normal person do? Only buy Apple gift cards from Apple, only buy Home Depot gift cards from Home Depot, et cetera.

That one piece of advice destroys a retail line of revenue that’s suffering massive endpoint fraud and removes the vast majority of risks to recipients of gift cards, and is simply explained to uninterested people that those conveniently-placed gift cards are bait cast by fishers for the unwary.

(I’d also sue the retailer in small claims court for selling a fraudulent product that didn’t perform as advertised.)