Kroger

I went into a Smith's grocery here in Las Vegas. Grabbed a $50 i - tunes gift card, case of water on the ay to cash register to pay. I was charged appropriately and went on my way exiting the store walked to my vehicle in the parking lot, used my sons phone to redeem the card only to find out the card was invalid.
I went into the store talked to manager and was told I must contact apple to see what happened. Apple informed us (phone call to apple was done in store through speaker phone) that card was purchased already months ago, but was returned immediately which in turn makes that card invalid. Once something like this hsppens the employees at the Kroger chain are SUPPOSE to do is throw the card away. This obviously didn't happen and somehow the card got back on the shelf. I called Kroger more times than I can remember about this only to get told to call apple support. Apple cannot do anything because they never recevied the money to refund. In Kroger's system there was said way to see in that cash register that there was money never recorded but this manager had no way of accessing. I called cuatomer support over and over only to be hung up on or my call redirected to a automatic recording to call apple. Finally aftef hours and hours of explaining this situation repeated times I was dealing with someone who sounded like they understood and were going to help. They were given all the information saw the proof of my purchases. I was given a case number and told to contact them back in a few days. I did, and did again and emailed over and over. Nothing. Its been about a month now. Still nothing, as if it's ok to sell Fraudulant products because what are you going to do about it?