People on Ebay are selling itunes gift cards for %40 off?

gregdrummeraz said:

So its fine if I buy and sell? ?!?

I know, I'm dumb. But I'd rather be clear then stretched.

Click to expand...

Selling stolen ones could land you in some trouble...but buying them online from people that you have no clue how they got them...I wouldnt worry about it.

Do you manage to keep the purchases if they disable your account? Not good if you can't use them when you change computers!!!!

I bought myself a $200 iTunes card more three years ago. I id some digging and found the original thread (...link iLounge, I'm thenerd). While my credit was fine through the couple years I worked through the credit, I later learned that it looked like stolen credit cards were the source. If you look on page 4, you will see that one person's credit was removed. Purchases were left on the account.

gregdrummeraz said:

One person out of how many buyers?!?

Click to expand...

I posted that to question the legitimacy of the source of the iTunes credit more than the chances of of the credit being removed. Still, it is a very tempting offer.

I saw these "too good to be true" offers on ebay, and decided to do a little research on it. With some background in electronic crimes and ID theft, I have determined that these have most likely been purchased with stolen credit cards, and are being re-sold on ebay. Notice that almost ALL of the sellers will only send you a code, not a physical card. That is because when they are purchased online with a credit card, they only give a code.

While it is very tempting to purchase these, I would recommend you stay away from them. Do you really want to be involved in purchasing potentially stolen goods? I woudn't want my name showing up in a federal investigation..

I bought a $200 one from ebay for $95 a few months ago. After spending about $90 of it, my itunes account was frozen. After emailing support, they reactivated my account but removed the rest of my credit I contacted the seller and they refunded me my entire purchase price, and I got to keep what I had purchased, so minus a little hassle I ended up a winner. My brother bought a code from the same seller and never had a problem with it, so who knows.

I ran across this thread while researching iTunes gift card fraud, and felt I needed to share some informtion with all of you, especially those of you who think nothing of purchasing these deeply-discounted cards from online auction sellers because you believe that the seller is buying in bulk or has made a deal with Apple.

This week, over $500 worth of fraudulent iTunes purchases appeared on my bank account. The majority of the transactions were in increments of $50, with a few at $100 and $200. I contacted my bank to dispute the transactions, and they said that it- to state the obvious- that someone stole my debit card number. I had to cancel my card, file complaints, and am still going through the hassle of not only the inconvenience of not having easy access to my bank account, but also of waiting to get my stolen funds refunded.

I contacted Apple, and the customer service representative told me that the person set up a fake account and used my card to purchase online gift cards, which are basically just a code used to add funds to an iTunes account. He said that there's a widespread problem of people doing this and then selling the gift card codes on ebay, usually at a steep discount. He advised me to contact my bank to report the theft, and that Apple would work with them to be sure that I get my money back. Also, he had access to the gift card numbers purchased with my stolen credit card number and said they'd be cancelled.

So, here I am, waiting for my money... my money... to be returned to me while some thief is profiting on ebay.

I hope that all of you continue to purchase these stolen cards will realize that Apple isn't the only one who's harmed by this new form of black market sales. (And just because it's on ebay doesn't make the sale of stolen goods any better or more legitimate than buying it from the guy in the van on the corner. It's still considered receiving/purchasing stolen goods, and it's still illegal.) Innocent people are harmed, too. Granted, yes, the person whose card number is stolen will get his money back- eventually, but stop and think about this before you hit "Buy it Now" to get one of these cards: Would you want someone you love, or even yourself, to have to go through the inconvenience that these thieves are putting a lot of people through just so you can pay $95 for a stolen $200 iTunes gift card?

Luckily I have enough in the bank to get by until I get the money back, but what if this was your 90-year-old grandmother on a fixed income or a single mom who's barely scraping by as it is? Imagine how a theft of $500 from their bank accounts might effect them? The fact that the money is refunded after the theft has been discovered in no way lessens the impact of the crime, and it in no way makes it any less serious. Theft is theft, and these people who sell these stolen gift cards, as well as those who knowingly support their trade by purchasing these cards, will hopefully be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

inkedmonkey said:

I ran across this thread while researching iTunes gift card fraud, and felt I needed to share some informtion with all of you, especially those of you who think nothing of purchasing these deeply-discounted cards from online auction sellers because you believe that the seller is buying in bulk or has made a deal with Apple.

This week, over $500 worth of fraudulent iTunes purchases appeared on my bank account. The majority of the transactions were in increments of $50, with a few at $100 and $200. I contacted my bank to dispute the transactions, and they said that it- to state the obvious- that someone stole my debit card number. I had to cancel my card, file complaints, and am still going through the hassle of not only the inconvenience of not having easy access to my bank account, but also of waiting to get my stolen funds refunded.

I contacted Apple, and the customer service representative told me that the person set up a fake account and used my card to purchase online gift cards, which are basically just a code used to add funds to an iTunes account. He said that there's a widespread problem of people doing this and then selling the gift card codes on ebay, usually at a steep discount. He advised me to contact my bank to report the theft, and that Apple would work with them to be sure that I get my money back. Also, he had access to the gift card numbers purchased with my stolen credit card number and said they'd be cancelled.

So, here I am, waiting for my money... my money... to be returned to me while some thief is profiting on ebay.

I hope that all of you continue to purchase these stolen cards will realize that Apple isn't the only one who's harmed by this new form of black market sales. (And just because it's on ebay doesn't make the sale of stolen goods any better or more legitimate than buying it from the guy in the van on the corner. It's still considered receiving/purchasing stolen goods, and it's still illegal.) Innocent people are harmed, too. Granted, yes, the person whose card number is stolen will get his money back- eventually, but stop and think about this before you hit "Buy it Now" to get one of these cards: Would you want someone you love, or even yourself, to have to go through the inconvenience that these thieves are putting a lot of people through just so you can pay $95 for a stolen $200 iTunes gift card?

Luckily I have enough in the bank to get by until I get the money back, but what if this was your 90-year-old grandmother on a fixed income or a single mom who's barely scraping by as it is? Imagine how a theft of $500 from their bank accounts might effect them? The fact that the money is refunded after the theft has been discovered in no way lessens the impact of the crime, and it in no way makes it any less serious. Theft is theft, and these people who sell these stolen gift cards, as well as those who knowingly support their trade by purchasing these cards, will hopefully be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Click to expand...

While I certainly empathize with you, it should be noted that not all iTunes gift cards on eBay are stolen. I realize you're upset about someone stealing your debit card, but blanketing everyone who buys iTunes cards from eBay as "thief supporters" is inappropriate.

I had purchased some "discounted" gift cards and all was fine for about 2 weeks until I was locked out of my account. I got it re-enabled and was sent the following:

"Your account was disabled because the purchaser of an iTunes Gift Certificate redeemed to your account has refuted the charges with his or her credit card company.

When charges are reported as unauthorized, any remaining iTunes Store credit from the disputed purchase is considered unauthorized and is removed from the account.

If you purchased the iTunes Gift Certificate on an auction website, it may have been part of a fraud claim. You may want to address the issues with your purchase to the seller, or use any dispute resolution service provided by the auction website or other remedies that might otherwise be available to you.

If the iTunes Gift Certificate was purchased from Apple, the buyer will need to contact his or her credit card company to discuss the disputed purchase.

You can now resume purchasing from the iTunes Store, but the funds from the fraudulent iTunes Gift Certificate will not be made available to you."

gift card scammers

I've been in contact with one of these scammers on ebay for a while. After he inadvertently sent me a code that was good for a hundred dollars (idiot) and I kept questioning him about the authenticity of the codes he came forward with this reply:

--
You are very welcome to call Apple and ask them. But since I called Apple before and have asked them about this same issue before I sold the cards.(just to be cautious) The answer you get from them would be Yes but actually No.
And I can understand your concern, since you are so concerning about the authentity. I could explain a little about how I get these cards.
I got these cards from a government owned drug company in China. This company has been suspend and investigated by the government three months ago. So you wondering what does it has to do with itunes. Ok, here is the thing. The management of this company embezzle the money of the bank account of the company. Then they use this money to buy all different kinds of gifts as bonus for themself legally, like itunes card, walmart gift cards, and them exchange them back into cash in the black market and put those money in to their own wallet. This is a very common method of embezzlement in China.
These people has been caught up now.The money has been refunded to the government.But a portion (like 20000 of them) of these gift cards have entered the black martket of China. And these cards are cheap, but what Apple really cares is that these cards lower the average price of their retail product. So they start to negotiate with the local government in China. And their deal is that, for the code that has not been used, Apple will expire them. But for the codes that has been put into someone's account, if the ammount is less than like $2000, they will let it go, otherwise, Apple will suspend the account for 2 weeks. And then remove the amount out of it. I thought about why 2000 before, and I got to know from some people that itunes is planning about selling ipod and computer all that in itunes store. So for their future profit, they just need to do this.
Well, this is all I know about this case from my relatives. So, if you just called a regular assistant in Apple, they propably won't know this at all But they will tell you that don't buy that again because they want you to buy from them with a higher price.
Let me know if you have any concern.
In fact, I don't really care about all those things. i just want to deliver the best to my customer, best price and best quality. And I think I did it.
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions or concern. I would try my best to help you with that.
Oh one quick thing here, I put like $400 in to my itunes 67 days ago, and it has been working just like a champ~So if i were you, just take it easy, because I could tell you the truth, over 80% sellers on eBay are selling the similar code just like me. So if you don't feel comfortable of getting one from me, then you probably won't feel comfortable with them either.
Good luck~
--

So since no transaction occurred on ebay, I simply called Apple and reported my suspicions. They said that there is not much they can do, but thanked me for being proactive and calling. They wouldn't take down the code he gave me, because they are "secret codes"

This guy had about 60 people leave 100% positive feedback for him on ebay. I would certainly beware.

^^

interesting

reporting the scammer

I'm now working through another channel to report this guy.

I disputed my payment and requested refund through paypal as I barely used much of the credit and am awaiting response. The seller responded in disagreement to this so we'll see how it plays out. Not sure how he can disagree with it considering he is now no longer a registered ebay user and all his auctions have been canceled.

So why are eBay allowing all these listings in the first place? If its true that most are fraudulent in some way, why doesn't eBay clamp down on them? Also, as a potential buyer, what can you do to check these guys out before buying from them? They can't all be a scam can they?

Does anyone have common sense??

For those that attempt to assure their conscience that they didn't involve themselves or promote any illegal activity, you DID.

Almost all of the ITUNES "Codes" (NOT cards) being sold on Ebay have been purchased with stolen credit card or PayPal info, or are being used to launder money (especially the high $$ 100 and 200 ones)

Apple does not "discount", have "sales" or anything else on these cards. Anyone that has been working with Apple products long enough knows that.

There are of course a few legitimate sellers of ITUNES gift cards on Ebay, but they will have the actual card, and it will sell for within a few dollars of its face value, not half price or some other super low price. The fact that they are selling "codes" tells you they are being purchased online, and not in a legitmate retail establishment.

Use common sense folks...too good to be true? Probably is...

<hypothetically speaking>


i bought two $200 gift cards. but i bought them around sept 10th when the prices were still cheap. i got the first one for $71 and the second one for $51. i have spent over $200 already.

both codes work fine and i didnt question a thing.

</hypothetically speaking>

ya they are probably stolen but how are we suppose to know? besides our common sence the average person would just think the person doesn't want them.

i have a feeling this person works at a store that sells them and scans them when know one is looking. its not unheard of when it comes to gift cards.

Apple does not "discount", have "sales" or anything else on these cards. Anyone that has been working with Apple products long enough knows that.

Click to expand...

You can get pretty nice discounts on them at places like Costco. They are more like 5-10% off, not 40, but they do discount them.

Hi, I can't find this guys on eBay now. Could you send me their email address or anything I can contact them? Thanks.

LOL, this thread is only almost 8 years old

OllyW said:

It was eight years ago and the scam has long since been shut down.

Click to expand...

Is it a hoax? Why do people still bought this apple gift card.