Itunes account without a credit card?

March 2, 2006 3:55 PM

I bought an Itunes card for my thirteen yeard old daughter. I tried for hours to set up an account for her without a credit card but was unsuccessful. I finally used their allowance feature which means I have to pay into her account every month. When I tried to put her card into her account it went into mine instead. Lame Itunes support says tough. Is there an easier way to do this?
posted by Xurando to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

You shouldn't need a credit card to make an account for your daughter: where did you run into trouble?

iTunes Music Store: How to redeem an iTunes Music Card

I tried for hours to set up an account for her without a credit card but was unsuccessful…When I tried to put her card into her account it went into mine instead.

I don't understand. You say you couldn't set up an account for her, and then you say you tried to credit the gift card to her account. Does she have a separate account or not?

If you already redeemed the gift card under your account, just let her get music under your account. She should be able to listen to songs downloaded from your account on any authorized computers and/or iPods just fine.
posted by designbot at 4:30 PM on March 2, 2006

Hmm. This worked for me back in December for my 12-year-old sister. Did you begin by trying to redeem the card, or begin by creating an account? (Does that make sense?) In the music store, click on "iTunes music cards" on the left and go from there to redeem a card and create an account without adding a credit card.
posted by minarets at 4:36 PM on March 2, 2006

jooc, did you make sure you have the latest version of iTunes? the thing designbot linked to says there's a None button if you want to make an account without a credit card. you don't get the button though if you just try to create an account straight up - you might have to go through the gift card screens.
posted by mrg at 4:36 PM on March 2, 2006

Teenagers listen to a *lot* of music. I've had a good response by gifting one little tyke a Napster sub. He seems to be eating up the unlimited playlist feature. If I was paying per track I'd be out several hundred a month!
posted by meehawl at 7:20 PM on March 2, 2006

I had the same problem when my son got a bunch of iTunes gift cards for Christmas a couple of years ago. I had to associate them with my existing account on my credit card.

It put a positive balance on the account, and then it turned out that I bought more music than he did, so I found myself handing him a $10 bill every month or so to make up for the nibble I'd taken of his gift balance.
posted by hwestiii at 9:43 PM on March 2, 2006

iTunes takes PayPal now. Maybe you can set the kid up with a PayPal account ? Not sure if PayPal is age-restricted, so it might not work after all. Worth a look though. Good luck !
posted by GreenTentacle at 6:13 AM on March 3, 2006