Basically, I bought a physical Apple gift card via the Apple online store, and it was never delivered. UPS tracking (on Apple's own site) showed it never left the origin. I called to get it re-shipped, and they (in so many words) accused me of fraud, because apparently the gift card had been redeemed and drained.

Obviously someone either at Apple's gift card printing contractor or at UPS snatched it.

Apple's suggested "solution" was for me to issue a chargeback on my credit card -- yes, the vendor suggesting a chargeback. I refused, because the credit card in question was my Apple Card, and I have read elsewhere that doing something like this can lead to your Apple account getting locked.

The exec escalation was the only way I got it resolved. It was Kafkaesque.

I think one major lesson to take from this (and other physical gift card vulnerabilities, like people that go and peek at the numbers on unredeemed cards in stores and then wait for them to be loaded) is: don't use physical gift cards anymore.