bump
Found out what the deal is with the 3 month xbl gold card being in my grab bag when I picked up what was set aside for me the other day. Apparantly they had a customer want to buy such a card, and the card was problematic with activating from their end. So another was bought instead, and my friend threw the problem card in my grab bag after reporting it with microsoft, and being told to dispose of it by trashing it since mailing it back would cost more time and money than necessary to do so. Microsoft can't exactly do anything with cards that won't seemingly activate, and as such reimburse retailers appropriately when they have issues like that reported to them. So from what I understand, and was told by my friend was that he threw it in the grab bag of stuff he sets aside for me, and if it worked I had 3 months xbl gold free on him. So despite the problem they had with it, it seems the card activated after a few tries, but their system was spitting out the error that it wasn't activated.
This applies to basically all cards used for digital services, so I may end up getting more despite not asking for them, cause even I don't want to deal with having cards that may or may not work. Though if this trend of cards working after the fact continues to be good then I'll take them.
Please note that nothing I do is illegal. What I get is what I get, and my friend being a manager at my local store follows all store policies regarding certain things that are destined for the trash. Being friends with him is a perk for me. It can be for anyone who visits their store often enough where staff seems friendly enough.