Why am I being charged for a gift card?

This makes no sense. I was very confused by the charges I am seeing on my credit statement, and I think the website presentation of the summary of charges is very misleading. I am being charged an extra 150 on top of the summary of charges statement. On the ordering page, it looks very much like you are getting a student discount AND a bonus gift card. If there was an option to remove the gift card, I didn't see it. So the deal is really not what it seems. If paying for the gift card is required for receiving the 150 off, then you are paying full price for the item, and then getting a 150 gift card credit to buy apple products. You are not getting 150 cash off of the item. It's very deceptive and frankly leaves a bad taste hanging over my purchase of a new apple product.

I hope you have your receipt handy.

If you look at the price of the item purchased (MacBook?), it’s $150 lower than the price quoted. That $150 lower price is the gift card you’re charged for. The gift card is paid back at$12.50 a month, interest free. You also received a $150 e-gift certificate.

So, you got charged $150 less than you were supposed to be charged and you pay that back interest free. You Come out ahead $150, like you’re supposed to.

Why is it done that way? It makes returns easier. I >>was<< an Apple Store Manager when it wasn’t done that way. Customers tried to return the product and not the gift card. It was a huge hassle. The process should have been explained better at the POS, if you purchased it in store. sorry there was confusion.

Price for iPad under the Back to School promotion is $ 549.00

1) I applied a gift card ($150.00) from a previous purchase

2) Price I paid = $ 549.00 + $ 17.96 (Tax) - $150.00 = $ 416.96

3) I was charged $ 416.96

4) I was charged $ 100.00 (in few min after)

5) I received a Gift Card for $ 100.00

So far I have to pay $ 516.96 and $ 100.00 I can use later. But I did pay for the gift card. My actual price is $ 416.96 - I would pay the same price without "gift card" Why it is called "Gift card"?

Apple Retail stores get extremely busy during back to school sales and even busier (if you can imagine that) when a tax-free week happens. Mac specialists get stretched thin and many people/students/parents don’t understand the process and how it works. I see this question a lot across social media platforms.

It took a while for me to figure it out. Think of it this way, like I did. I buy a $150 gift card from apple. So I give apple $150.00 and I get a card worth $150.00. Now I purchase a 1,000 computer, but apple deducts $150.00 to represent that gift card. So you can think now that that hundred fifty dollars you paid for the gift card went towards reducing the computer by $150.00. But when you get your computer, you now have $150.00 you can spend on anything Apple and you didn't pay for that $150.00. So thats where the free $150.00 comes from. So you DID get the $150.00 after some accounting mumbo jumbo... Its mind boggling, I don't understand why Apple doesn't just sell you the computer at $1000 dollars, and give you the gift card. Why they need your 150.00 to show a discount on the computer, which is not really a discount makes no sense to me but there has to be some reason for this. Who knows, maybe they can explain it on this forum. Normally you don't have to pay taxes on gift cards, so that can't be a reason.

It’s several factors, accounting, inventory and returns. I was an Apple Store manager when a physical gift card was handed to the customer. We had to get the card out of inventory for accounting purposes and so the store doesn’t show shrinkage/loss for the item. If the student decided to return the computer, we needed the card back and maybe they already spent it, or figured out was theirs to keep. It created a lot of anger and confusion in the stores and they eventually went to the e-gift cards and doing the accounting the current way.

Paying sales tax on gift cards is an individual state issue. Some states charge tax and some don’t.

Refer to this document for ways to contact Apple ➞ Choose your country or region - Official Apple Support

Select your country (also look for "other" regions), then a product. If you don't see one that handles your issue then keep experimenting with selections until you reach one that gets you a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.

or:

Contact Apple for support and service by telephone ➞ Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Did you read my answer above, marked >Best Answer.<

Jeff Donald wrote:

Why is it done that way? It makes returns easier. I >>was<< an Apple Store Manager when it wasn’t done that way. Customers tried to return the product and not the gift card. It was a huge hassle. The process should have been explained better at the POS, if you purchased it in store. sorry there was confusion.

Oh, gosh, yes. I remember that being an issue when I worked at Verizon Wireless. Also, buy-one-get-one-free where people wanted to return the "buy one" and have us charge them for the free one.

Are you purchasing this under the Back to School promotion? If so, please post a photo of the receipt or a screen shot of the email. Please mark out any personal information, Apple Support Community is a public forum.

And, not surprisingly, point-of-sale systems often don't make returns easy. Glad to be out of retail.

I am not sure you are right: for example, I am buy iPad Air , the listed price is $549.00. They charged my $549.00 + tax and then Apple charged me $100.00 for Gift card. I do not see any "savings"(

Thank you for the explanation, I knew there had to be a reason. I appreciate the quick response too!

Can please anyone give ms a gift card

Osman789 wrote:

Can please anyone give ms a gift card

Ask your family for one for your birthday.