iTunes Gift Cards Limited to $50
Product Commentary. Oh, the wicked wiles of the iTunes gift card hackers have come your way. |
Rather than rack up lots of little credit card charges for iTunes music, I buy myself e-mail gift cards, usually in $75 or $100 denominations. Not really that often, either. But I've been taking advantage of Apple offers for cheap DRM-free upgrades, so my spending is up. Last month, I sent myself a 75-bucker. Last night, when I tried again, whoops, the highest amount available was $50.
I thought maybe there was a glitch affecting my account, so I asked a couple of friends to check theirs. Sure enough, they couldn't spend more than $50 either. The situation hadn't changed early this afternoon, so I did a screen capture. There you have it. Rather than the typical $200 limit, e-mail gift cards are capped at 50 bucks.
About some things there's no point in even asking Apple for comment. It's already widely known that Chinese hackers cracked iTunes gift cards security, and they've been hawking $200 amounts for just a few bucks. That's what everybody is reporting. Perhaps Apple is being cautious, lowering new e-mail gift cards to $50, or perhaps these industrious hackers have broken lower denominations' security, too.
Something else: It was really tough buying a $50 card. I kept getting server time-out messages, which is unusual. These purchases usually are fast. You've got to wonder who's hitting those Apple servers up for dollars. Are people buying multiple cards, like I had to, or are there scads of illegal purchases being processed by hackers or buyers of illicit cards? Worse, are there people repeatedly trying to cash in legitimate cards whose numbers the crooks used up?
This whole gift card thing puts a frighteningly tangible face on music stealing. It's one thing for people to grab music from faceless, anonymous Torrents and something altogether different to hit iTunes, where there's tangible money involved. File trading is amorphous theft. This gift card hack steals real money and could eventually make it more difficult for the majority of gifters or giftees. This kind of problem usually leads to stiffer, and often user-unfriendly, security measures.
If I spoke Mandarin Chinese, you'd be reading one big FU to the hackers right here.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Comments (4)
I think this is hilarious. On one hand you basically condone p2p file sharing and torrents. Faceless anonymous torrents. But it's bad when someone hacks a gift card that then is used for exactly the same content.
You've drawn a ludicrous line in the sand basically saying 'Hey, it's ok if they're just ripping off record companies or the motion picture industry. As long as it doesn't affect apples bottom line......'
Posted by bart | March 15, 2009 9:05 AM
Golly Joe . . .
So it is not really stealing anything of monetary value when the music, movies and other copyright material is stolen through some sort of P2P.
Sounds like the rationalization of a teenager!
Sheesh!
Posted by Barry Williams | March 16, 2009 2:50 AM
I was wondering why they were capped at $50 ....
Posted by Freehill Media Web Design | March 19, 2009 6:12 PM
He doesn't condone it. he is stating the difference in the 2 thefts (note: he calls them theft)
itunes pays actual, quantifiable dollars to artists relative to the value of what file was downloaded. this is different from file trading. he was just pointing that out.
no need for additional moral judgments, the word THEFT says it all.
Posted by Alfred | April 30, 2009 1:24 PM