How to Turn Your iTunes Gift Cards Into Cash

Turning an iTunes (or any other gift card) back into cash isn't as easy as it sounds. There are lots of places on the internet that offer to buy back a gift card, but they often deduct about 5% from the price. That leaves you not getting full retail value for the "plastic cash" that you own. You could try to sell it on eBay or to someone online, but again, you're losing money and could enter a potential scam. However, thanks to a new service known as Apperang, I was able to turn my iTunes gift card into 100% cash.

Here's the situation: I purchase all of my music through Amazon because I don't like the DRM restrictions iTunes puts on its music. But lo and behold, a friend of mine still got me a $15 iTunes gift card for my birthday. I do own an iPod Touch, but didn't have a need to purchase any apps for it at the moment. Basically, I wanted an easy way to turn a $15 piece of plastic into $15 of cash. I finally found this method online called Apperang. The website is certainly not intended for this kind of use, but it works well for what I needed, and I got some free apps in the process.

Here's how Apperang works: publishers are trying to get people to use their applications. So they put them on the site where users like me come along and download them. For our trouble, Apperang pays $0.25 for each app we download, or the cost of the app plus $0.25 if it is paid. They pay by sending a Paypal payment email.

I decided to use the service to turn my iTunes gift card into cash. Essentially, I signed up on the site, logged into iTunes and applied my gift card, then downloaded the apps on Apperang. Total, the site had several paid apps, and a few free ones which totaled $15.96. I then requested payment and got an email within five minutes with my Paypal cash.

When you download an app through Apperang, it gives you a link to the iTunes store. You then download it through iTunes. If the app costs $5, then it will deduct $5 from your iTunes account. But then, you go to Apperang and the site verifies that you downloaded the app, then pays you $5 plus $0.25. As you can see, it is a great way to turn your gift card into cash, and earn some money and free apps in the process.

Notes:

• You'll need an iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone to use this site
• You need a Paypal account
• You'll need to sign up with the email used to sign up with your Paypal account
• You actually have to install the apps on your iPod/iPad/iPhone, but can delete them later after the site verifies you installed them.
• The site doesn't have a lot of apps right now, but hopefully more will show up. You can cash as much as $15.96 as of 6/30/2010, so plan accordingly.