alt Hacker NewsThey covered this a lot on the Accidental Tech Podcast last night.
I just don't get why these companies should be in the business of offering gift cards-- at least, not if they can't be redeemed safely.
I'm sure people would run other kinds of scams with AppleIDs without the existence of gift cards, but gift card redemption scams have gotta be 99% of the reason people create fake accounts. The support burden would evaporate almost overnight if they just exited this stupid market.
Replies
> I just don't get why these companies should be in the business of offering gift cards
I think gift card or not isn't really relevant, fraudulent activity can happen in a lot of ways like iCloud being paid by a stolen credit card, or TV shows being rented with hacked PayPal account.
The real issue is simply that there's no proper support avenue for serious issues that at this point affect your whole life, a family or a whole company. There's also no real avenue for a user to get the authorities to do anything to help with their case.
> I just don't get why these companies should be in the business of offering gift cards
If they're anything like Starbucks then they get the benefit of utilizing the unredeemed balances as temporary capital for investments. It's an interest free loan at their scale. Plus they get to keep the balance that people forget to redeem.