Store Issued A $500 Apple Gift Card When I Paid For $20 (ma, Usa)

Hi, this is a weird one. So I bought a $20 Apple gift card for my kid’s birthday, but when she tried to redeem it, the app store said it was “void”. I called the grocery store, who told me to call Apple. Apple said they can’t do anything, the issue’s on the grocery’s end. I called the grocery again and spoke to the manager, who said he’d call me back but didn’t.

Finally I went back to the store a few days later to explain, and the other manager said he’d just give me another $20 card on the store’s dime. I picked up one of the “choose the amount from $10-500” cards (that’s all they had), he activated it, and gave me another receipt— which said “amount paid: $20”. My credit card wasn’t charged during this.

My kids birthday had already passed by that point and I didn’t need $20 on Apple, so I gave the new card to a friend who has been having a rough patch.

** She just called thanking me profusely for the $500 gift card.**

She sent a screenshot of her Apple account, that’s definitely $500 in credits on it, but my new and original receipts both say $20. All I can think of is when the grocery store cashier activated the card maybe he forgot to set the amount and it defaulted to the maximum?

She’s already redeemed the card, that’s how we found out about the error, and I’m worried that I’ll be on the hook for $480 I in no way intended to spend. A Google search tells me there’s no way that Apple will refund the credits once the card’s been redeemed.

Does anyone know what the store will do, or what my legal obligation is?