Ok, well Apple is really not selling $200 iTunes gift cards for only $2.60 so keep dreaming. But according to Music Ally Chinese “pirates” have hacked the algorithm that generates the iTunes gift cards and so now fake cards are flooding the market for as low as $2.60 in China. When we say flooding we literally mean flooding the Chinese market:

Apparently six months ago, a $200 card went for around 320 RMB (roughly $47), but the price has since plummeted to around 18 RMB ($2.60) as more sellers pile in.

With the iPhone 3G getting ready to make an appearance in China it should be interesting to see just how Apple responds to this. Apple will more than likely make a quick change to nullify the pirates ability to create these cards but it’s not like you can do away with the ones already in circulation as there is no easy way to decipher a bogus card from one that is legit (unless they have some super secret Apple wonder-ETL and ad-hoc query/number-crunching monster we don’t know about).

[Via Music Ally]

$200 iTunes Gift Cards on Sale for $2.60 (Ok, Not Really…) is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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