App Store giftcard: How to remove plastic strip without making the code unreadable

Often when I buy an App Store giftcard, as I remove the grey plastic strip covering the code number, the number itself tears and becomes unreadable. Removing it slowly doesn't seem to work any better than removing it quickly. There is a way to get a refund for an unreadable number, but it's a time-consuming process. (I'm in Taiwan, where bureaucratic rules are sometimes elaborate.) There's no easy way to identify different batches of cards, so as to avoid those that seem more prone to doing this. But I'm wondering if there are any suggestions as to ways to prevent the paper from tearing in the first place. I can imagine that heating or cooling the whole card might change the way the glue on the strip interacts with the paper underneath. I don't want to experiment, lest I make matters worse. Any ideas? Edit: In this case I was able to guess the correct number on the third try, but at other times it's been too hard. I've added a picture here, since reader comments show they're not familiar with these particular cards: