Recharge cards

[wco81]

So it would be the same number format as the scratch off cards then?

OK, because in the US, the stores sell gift cards and prepaid credit cards the same way. They have displays with dozens of them and you take the ones you want to the cashier and pay them. I never bought one of these but that makes sense, that they'd have to give you some code, unless they're able to program the barcodes.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by wco81

So it would be the same number format as the scratch off cards then?

Probabaly yes.

OK, because in the US, the stores sell gift cards and prepaid credit cards the same way.

That's how it worked in Germany until a couple of years ago, too. But nowadays that cash points are all IP-connected it's probably cheaper to print out recharge codes at the register instead of producing and handling those scratch cards, which notably can be stolen.

They have displays with dozens of them and you take the ones you want to the cashier and pay them.

Actually we still have such over here, e.g. for amazon or iTunes but no recharge vouchers for cell providers in that form anymore.

I never bought one of these but that makes sense, that they'd have to give you some code, unless they're able to program the barcodes.

The problem with barcodes is that European EAN-13 codes have only 13 digits, of which about half are reserved for country and manufacturer identification which leaves only 2-6 digits for the actual item code, which is too short to contain recharge codes. Of course they could introduce a new separate barcode for this purpose but that would actually complicate things.