Gift Card Codes Unreadable

This past Christmas I received several Apple Gift Cards and like the years past I would peel the plastic and redeem from my phone. On my last gift card several characters were peeled off and unreadable, like the many that have already posted similar issues. I thought given I had the card in hand this would be fairly easy to resolve with Apple Support, however it has been a very frustrating experience. First through chat I was bounced around to several teams and wasted an hour of time. Eventually I got on the phone with Level 2 and had to fill out a form and provide pictures of the front and back of the card. I was then asked to provide the original receipt as well. Unfortunately all three gift cards were the same value and were gifts from three different people so I didn’t have them. I was able to track down one of the three receipts and submitted it as well. A week later I was told they cannot investigate because I didn’t hand write the case ID on the receipt. Not one of the previous 4 reps I spoke to mentioned this and now I am back to square one. Why is is necessary to jump through so many hoops when the serial # and bar code can easily determine the value and code? I have lost hope in Apple and now out $50 because of their cheap gift cards. Are there any other options available as support has been more obstacles than good!