Problem activating iTunes cards, need consumer advice

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Arsh

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Topic # 96245 23-Jan-2012 10:55

Hi

I recently purchased 2 iTunes cards from Mobil, Mt Wellington. They had a special going on, 2x $20 cards for $30 and that's why I purchased them. When I tried to activate them I could not do so via iTunes so I got in touch with their support. They asked me to send them scanned images of the card and the receipt. I sent them the scanned images of the card and explained that I don?t have the receipt because:

It is uncommon for me to keep receipts every time I filled up my car.

It would not be possible for me to obtain the receipt from the gas station because I do not remember the date I purchased the cards (I purchased them, left them in my wallet and forgot about them until few days ago). And since it was a cash sale, I won?t be able to track it down via bank statement. If I did manage to get the receipt, the inconvenience and time lost won't be the $30 I spent on the card. iTunes then replied stating the reasons they need to see the receipt and said they won't be able to help without a proof of purchase. This has left me fuming because I think it's ridiculous that I should have to go to such inconvenience to activate cards that I purchased legitimately. Can you imagine the agony if I had purchased these as a gift for someone? $30 I spent on them is all but lost for me. Surely, this is unacceptable. For what it's worth it could be a con job set up by Apple and the retailer to screw well intentioned consumers.

Is there anything I can do in this situation or is it lost $30 for me? Is this in some way covered under the Consumers Act (goods unfit for purpose and so on)?

Cheers
Arsh

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Reply # 572308 23-Jan-2012 11:48

Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

Arsh

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Reply # 572311 23-Jan-2012 11:55

sbiddle: Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

No, they were not activated at pos. But that is incompetence of the retailer. I'll go see them this afternoon to see what they say.

sbiddle

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Reply # 572314 23-Jan-2012 12:00

Arsh:
sbiddle: Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

No, they were not activated at pos. But that is incompetence of the retailer. I'll go see them this afternoon to see what they say.

Clearly you're going to need to know when you visited so they can look back at CCTV footage

Arsh

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Reply # 572317 23-Jan-2012 12:10

sbiddle:
Arsh:
sbiddle: Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

No, they were not activated at pos. But that is incompetence of the retailer. I'll go see them this afternoon to see what they say.

Clearly you're going to need to know when you visited so they can look back at CCTV footage

Exactly, so I've pretty much lost my money due to incomptence of Mobil. They should have activated them at pos or atleast told me to keep the docket. Plus they keep their cards behind the counter so there is no way for anyone to steal those cards unless is a robbery or something.

jbard

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Reply # 572321 23-Jan-2012 12:12

Arsh:
sbiddle:
Arsh:
sbiddle: Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

No, they were not activated at pos. But that is incompetence of the retailer. I'll go see them this afternoon to see what they say.

Clearly you're going to need to know when you visited so they can look back at CCTV footage

Exactly, so I've pretty much lost my money due to incomptence of Mobil. They should have activated them at pos or atleast told me to keep the docket. Plus they keep their cards behind the counter so there is no way for anyone to steal those cards unless is a robbery or something.

I'm not sure why you walked out without them being activated?

Did you not realise they needed activation?

Arsh

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Reply # 572322 23-Jan-2012 12:14

jbard:
Arsh:
sbiddle:
Arsh:
sbiddle: Where the cards ever activated instore?

Requiring some proof of purchase is essential, with gift cards that are only activated at the POS it's a fairly old trick for people to steal the blank cards and then return them claiming the cards were purchased and the staff didn't activate them.

No, they were not activated at pos. But that is incompetence of the retailer. I'll go see them this afternoon to see what they say.

Clearly you're going to need to know when you visited so they can look back at CCTV footage

Exactly, so I've pretty much lost my money due to incomptence of Mobil. They should have activated them at pos or atleast told me to keep the docket. Plus they keep their cards behind the counter so there is no way for anyone to steal those cards unless is a robbery or something.

I'm not sure why you walked out without them being activated?

Did you not realise they needed activation??

Nope. First time purchasing these cards and only because they were on special. I went through pos, paid for them and my fuel and walked out. Didn't think I'd need anything else.

RunningMan

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Reply # 572324 23-Jan-2012 12:18

Arsh:
For what it's worth it could be a con job set up by Apple and the retailer to screw well intentioned consumers.

I suspect they have better things to do than this, and it would likely backfire on them if they did.

Arsh:
Exactly, so I've pretty much lost my money due to incomptence of Mobil.

Was it Mobil that lost your reciept for you?

It's almost unheard of for businesses to not ask for proof of purchase when contacting them regarding an issue / malfunction / inactivation etc. with a product after the time of sale.

Things go wrong from time to time, but I don't think it is unreasonable for a business to ask for proof of purchase before providing a remedy.

dontpanic42

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Reply # 572366 23-Jan-2012 14:22

jbard:
I'm not sure why you walked out without them being activated?

Did you not realise they needed activation?

Just out of interest, how would one know that they have been activated or not?
Does it require the Mobil attendant (or any retailer, really) to just scan the barcode on them and that's it, they are activated? Or is it a more involved process of manually entering the desired gift card value in and then pressing enter a couple of times?

The reason I ask is that I'm wondering if it's possible for the cards to be scanned through as a purchase, but a secondary procedure has to be completed before they are activated?
So, if they are scanned through as a purchase, and the customer looks at the receipt to see that they have been paid for, the customer would more than likely think that means they have been activated.

With anything that involves a gift card, I'm always inclined to keep the receipt just in case, because you never can trust the person behind the counter to get it right all of the time. #Sh*thappens #CaptainHindsight
;-)

jbard

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Reply # 572385 23-Jan-2012 14:52

I have never been in the position of selling them but this is how i see it.

In most shops they are out on display so are clearly not active or they would be a high theft target.

It is extremely unlikely these shops have integrated the activation system into their current POS considering the small margins on these items.

Just selling the item through the POS isn't enough to activate it, it either needs to be scanned again in another program or the number manually entered somewhere.

I would guess that these are activated through the ezipay system similar to gift cards/phone top ups.

OK i just checked and they are activated this way: http://www.ezipay.co.nz/musiccards.asp

In most shops this means swiping the card in a separate machine or swiping it a second time on the EFTPOS machine then pressing some buttons to activate it. You should actually get a separate receipt, one for the transaction and one to confirm the activation - you get this with phone cards.

So yes it would be very easy to walk away thinking it was activated and in fact it wasn't, also this could happen for any number of reasons especially at a garage. If it was a newer staff member for example they may not know anything about activation of them.

Arsh

34 posts

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Reply # 572515 23-Jan-2012 20:40

Thanks for the replies folks. It is fair to say that I probably should have kept the receipt, but really, who keeps receipts about what you purchased from petrol stations..? And that too after 1-2 months? I could have bought 5 of these and given them as a gift. The recipient then wouldn't have the receipt, would he?

That's money down the drain for me but lessons learned. I suspect there will be few more who bought these cards from the same place and walked out without getting them activated by Mobil. This is pretty shabby stuff from Mobil who are obviously not doing their jobs properly.

kiwiharry

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Reply # 572781 24-Jan-2012 14:56

Arsh: Thanks for the replies folks. It is fair to say that I probably should have kept the receipt, but really, who keeps receipts about what you purchased from petrol stations..? And that too after 1-2 months? I could have bought 5 of these and given them as a gift. The recipient then wouldn't have the receipt, would he?

That's money down the drain for me but lessons learned. I suspect there will be few more who bought these cards from the same place and walked out without getting them activated by Mobil. This is pretty shabby stuff from Mobil who are obviously not doing their jobs properly.

You really need to make contact with Mobil and try and get a duplicate copy of the receipt. Realise it is difficult to remember exactly which date you did purchase the cards. Sometimes when I've tried to remember what date I've visited somewhere or purchased something, I try and recall if I had a particular txt or phone conversation with somebody that day and go back through my txts and call log to work out the date.

Hope this helps.

mattwnz

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Reply # 572787 24-Jan-2012 15:04

Arsh: Thanks for the replies folks. It is fair to say that I probably should have kept the receipt, but really, who keeps receipts about what you purchased from petrol stations..? And that too after 1-2 months? I could have bought 5 of these and given them as a gift. The recipient then wouldn't have the?receipt, would he?

That's money down the drain for me but lessons learned. I suspect there will be few more who bought these cards from the same place and walked out without getting them activated by Mobil. This is pretty shabby stuff from Mobil who are obviously not doing their jobs properly.

Are you sure they even gave you a receipt? Sometimes they ask whether you want the receipt or not. If you paid by eftpos or credit card, there will be a reocrd on your statement, cash though is more difficult. Also if you ask the retailer, I beleive they have to give you copy of the receipt if requested for tax reasons.
I have never purchased the cards before, so wouldn't have known that they need to be activated either, but if they didn't do what they were supposed to, then they have to put it right. I am sure that you won't have lost your money, the manger of the store should sort this for you.

Arsh

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Reply # 573126 25-Jan-2012 11:29

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate them. I'm thinking I'll head down to Mobil to buy 2 more iTunes cards and get a receipt this time. I'll use this receipt to get activate the new cards and month or so later, use the same receipt to activate the cards I bought before.. do you think it could work? Or I could go to JB Hi Fi and buy activated cards and then use the docket from that sale to activate old cards. Either way I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. I know it's probably not the most legal way of doing it but I feel I've been screwed here by Mobil and iTunes

sbiddle

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Reply # 573130 25-Jan-2012 11:50

Arsh: Thanks for your replies, I appreciate them. I'm thinking I'll head down to Mobil to buy 2 more iTunes cards and get a receipt this time. I'll use this receipt to get activate the new cards and month or so later, use the same receipt to activate the cards I bought before.. do you think it could work? Or I could go to JB Hi Fi and buy activated cards and then use the docket from that sale to activate old cards. Either way I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. I know it's probably not the most legal way of doing it but I feel I've been screwed here by Mobil and iTunes

No retailer in the world would activate these cards like this for you. They are charged by EziPay when the cards are activated. Their assumption would be that you've stolen blank cards, which are easy enough to obtain because they are openly displayed in stores because they have no value.

RunningMan

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Reply # 573138 25-Jan-2012 12:23

Arsh: Thanks for your replies, I appreciate them. I'm thinking I'll head down to Mobil to buy 2 more iTunes cards and get a receipt this time. I'll use this receipt to get activate the new cards and month or so later, use the same receipt to activate the cards I bought before.. do you think it could work? Or I could go to JB Hi Fi and buy activated cards and then use the docket from that sale to activate old cards. Either way I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. I know it's probably not the most legal way of doing it but I feel I've been screwed here by Mobil and iTunes

Ahh, that would be completely dishonest, which is what you have accused Mobil and/or Apple of doing earlier in the thread. Last time I checked, two wrongs don't make a right.

If the guy/girl at the Mobil counter can't help, ask to speak with the manager, explain the situation to them, and see what they can do to help you. If the cards have sequential serial numbers, or some other tracking, it may be fairly easy to confirm that they came from their store, and roughly what date they were sold, therefore narrowing the window to obtain a duplicate receipt.

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