The curious case of Google Play error code PRS-PGCSEFC-01 while redeeming gift cards

A mysterious Google Play Store PRS-PGCSEFC-01 error has been bothering many users for several months now. It shows up whenever a user tries to redeem a gift card.

Due to this, many users’ money has seemingly gone waste which in turn has prompted a slew of complaints on the official Google Play Store forums. Some of such have been given below.

My cousin bought a 15 Euro card and gave me the code. i wrote the code and got the error : PRS-PGCSEFC-01
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I purchased a $10 google play credits but upon redeeming it, the error PRS-PGCSEFC-01 Pops up right after it says you are about to load $10 to this account.
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This error occurs when entering a code into the redemption feature that is present under the Google Play Store app’s sidebar. Unfortunately, not much is known about this error.

And quite oddly, no Product Expert or Google employee has given out a definitive solution for this little issue to date even though there have been hundreds of complaints about the same on the Google Play forums.

There isn’t even any official acknowledgment to date which is frustrating, to say the least.

Nonetheless, we have found a possible reason behind the appearance of the PRS-PGCSEFC-01 error on the Google Play Store. This has been pointed out by many users across several threads.

As it stands, the error occurs due to a purported policy of Google that says that one has to be in the same country where the gift card was purchased/originated from due to currency differences.

Therefore, you might want to use a VPN in order to spoof your location to the origin of a gift card, like for say, the United States, which also happens to be the most common country of origin.

However, if that did not help, then make sure that your Google Pay details are all proper than that your account isn’t being restricted by Google Family Link.

If these conditions have already been met, then your last resort could be to clear the cache of the Google Play Store app or perhaps sign out of your Google account and log in back again.

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