What happens if I gift an album and the person already owns it?

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Level 1

0 points

What happens if I gift an album and the person already owns it?

I've read 2 different stories on these forums and from Itunes. Most people here say that you are out of luck. They can't swap for a different gift of the same monetary value. However, I read an article that Itunes checks to determine if the person already owns the gift you are giving - if they do, it gives you are warning that they already own it.

Which is correct? If neither are correct, what is the current policy? I'd really rather gift the actual album instead of just giving them the gift card and going "I really recommend you buy this with your gift card." I'd rather say "Hey, this is what I gifted you on Itunes - if you already have it, no worries, you can just get credit for the amount and get something else you'll enjoy." But, it doesn't appear this is possible....

Does anybody know what the options are now?

Posted on Dec 4, 2011 12:01 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 17, 2012 10:25 AM in response to kerplunkuga

Hi, yes, I have this exact same question, except with regards to apps. What happens if I gift an app and the person already owns it?

I'd like it to credit their account for the value of the gift or offer an option to decline the gift and notify the sender.

I do have one thing to add. When I purchased an app for my friend, he already owned it at the time (I found out later) and I was not prompted that he already owned it. Apple does not block you from gifting something that someone already owns. Which is good, because as an account holder, you don't want anyone to be able to see what you already own, even if it's for a gift.

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Answer 2

Oct 17, 2012 10:46 AM in response to chad von nau

This post answers the question:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1930844

The recipient is just stuck with two copies basically. There's no procedure in place to avoid this.

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Answer 3

JFKinDC

Level 1

7 points

Apr 23, 2013 9:09 AM in response to kerplunkuga

This is utterly lame. The very least apple could do would be to tell you if a specific email account is already associated with a given app. This would literally take two minutes to program and eliminate 90% of the issues involved with giving a gift that the recipient already has. With this function you would never have to request a refund or have people upset about wasting the purchase price of a gift. It ruins the surprise if you have to ask someone if they already have an app or album

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Answer 4

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Apr 23, 2013 9:40 AM in response to JFKinDC

The very least apple could do would be to tell you if a specific email account is already associated with a given app.

They have no way of knowing whether the email to which you are sending a gift is the email associated with the iTunes Store account that will be used to redeem it. I don't use the same email address with my iTunes Store account that I use to get mail from my friends, and I would suspect I'm by no means alone in that, so if it were to check the email address someone might send a gift to, it would never find any app or content associated with the address. In addition, with millions of users having iTunes Store accounts (and many of those users having multiple accounts), checking every email address to see if the account associated with that address had already purchased the app would be impractical.