in General, Tech

Circuit City / iTunes Alert

For my birthday, I received an iTunes gift card purchased at Circuit City. Great gift!

Unfortunately, due to some unusual sales methods the card was almost useless.

This is what the card looks like upon purchase:

IMG_1957

I, as the purchaser did, assumed that the code used to redeem the card was either contained on the back or within the folded cardboard that makes up the card.

But in fact, the relevant code is not contained anywhere on the card! Here’s the back:

IMG_1956
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

That’s right, the code is contained only on the receipt. I didn’t notice this until I went to redeem the card two days after receiving it. Thankfully, the receipt hadn’t been thrown out yet.

Apple’s instructions inside iTunes itself for redeeming gift cards claim that the codes are contained on the backs of cards. Circuit City does not follow this model, and the cashier did not mention it at purchase time. I’m sure someone has overlooked this fact and ended up with a dud card. Just wanted to give a heads up.