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Do I need to have an Amazon account to redeem a gift card?
Yes, you'll need an Amazon account to make any purchase on Amazon, whether you're using a gift card or not.
I can't see the entire code on the gift card — what do I do?
In that case, you'd have to contact Amazon for help. You'll have to provide the 16- or 30-digit serial number of the card, your order number (if you know it), the purchaser's name, the recipient's name, and the email address or physical address where the gift card was sent.
Amazon used to let you check the value of an Amazon gift card without putting the value into your Amazon account. But it looks like that can not be done anymore! How do we check the value of an Amazon gift card now without putting it into an Amazon account?
I just bought an Amazon gift card from the Superstore in Richmond this afternoon and when I tried to claim it, the grey bar on the claim code was unusually hard to peel off (like someone glued it) so I scratched off the grey area instead and noticed that 2 of the digits in the middle were not legible.
I thought maybe it was a print error. No big deal so I contacted Amazon and the rep asked me for the card serial number. I gave him the number on the back and he said it wasn't valid. I looked closely at the card and it seems like someone scratched off 2 digits in the middle of the card. Instead of 16 numbers, there were only 14 and there was a noticeable gap where 2 other numbers should be. The rep told me to send a picture of the card to their GC escalations team and that someone would get back to me in 2-3 days.
I started looking up if this is a common scam and it seems like it has happened to some other people:
Example 1
Example 2
I couldn't sleep because I was worried someone was going to claim my GC and I just remembered there's an app on my phone that can read barcodes. I contacted another Amazon rep, gave the full 16-digit card number shown by my barcode reader and she asked me some security questions (e.g. how much was on the card, where I purchased it, etc) and I offered to send my receipt. She was able to load the GC amount on my account! I really hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.
Btw, the packaging of the card didn't look like it was tampered with. The perforated area was intact so they could've used a knife or something to open the card and then resealed it. Just giving everyone a heads up since people will most likely be buying gift cards this holiday season.