But still there is the question, did Apple took all those? I would say, it depends.

World wide, you can buy those prepaid iTunes cards to fill up your account. I do that regularly. I do this, because at least here in Germany from time to time the merchants have discounts of 25% to 30% on those cards. Thats no shady merchant, but the big brick and mortar chains.

That let me assume, that Apple is selling those cards to those merchants with about this discount.