I was surprised to read about a new, sophisticated twist on gift card fraud.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office arrested hundreds of suspects accused of ripping off retail chains in a massive anti-theft operation, including disrupting a likely international gift card scam the office has never seen before.
. . .
The suspect, who was only identified as a Chinese national, is likely part of a larger operation in which people take legitimate gift cards off the shelves of stores and "surgically remove" the glue that covers the cards’ barcodes, Gandhi said. They then record the PINs, re-conceal the barcodes with glue, and return the cards to store shelves, the spokesperson explained, adding his office had never seen such an operation before.
Then, when an unsuspecting shopper loads one of the cards with funds, "that money goes straight into a Chinese bank account somewhere," the spokesperson explained.
"It’s going to go unreported because are you going to confront somebody who gave you a $0 gift card, right? No, that's rude. And then you're sitting there fat, dumb and happy, thinking, ‘Oh, I did something nice for somebody,’ not knowing that your money's gone," he said, noting the crime has national and international implications and is not isolated to just Sacramento.
There's more at the link. A photograph shows literally thousands of gift cards arranged on the floor, with police putting out more of them.
I'd never heard of that sort of scam before, but I guess with gift cards becoming more and more popular, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to defraud their buyers. If you were planning on buying gift cards to give to family and friends this Christmas, you might want to think again about that; and if you receive a gift card with a $0.00 balance, it might be worth mentioning it to the giver, along with a link to the news article above. If the giver was charged for the gift card, but it had a zero balance, they might want to follow that up with the issuing store.
Peter
I just saw a report on simpler version of the scam has the criminals cut the barcode section off the gift card and reseal the wrapper. Electronic gift cards can't be wrapped but at least you avoid these inteception scams.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the obvious outcomes of making retail theft less than $950 dollars a misdemeanor offence and no-bail DAs in California. If the kingpin or one of his mules never carries more than $900 in cards they will always walk away from an arrest.
Check the balance right after loading the card the company should be able to sweep the balance from the fraud bank account. Sour grapes to the crook
DeleteCash is king! Sigh...
ReplyDeleteThat's a nasty little scam. I'm not a big fan of gift cards; this is even more reason to avoid them.
ReplyDeleteJonathan
Guess people don't put 20 bucks in a card anymore, eh?
ReplyDeleteWe were victims of this, and NOBODY did anything. The store said there was nothing they could do, the bank said it was a store problem, and the credit card said their hands were tied. $50 went to a criminal who will never be prosecuted.
ReplyDeleteThe most shocking was the store saying they couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't or wouldn't, there's no difference in the end. Nothing was done.
I forgot to mention... And that gift receipt? It didn't make a bit of difference either.
ReplyDeleteVote with your wallet!
DeleteDon't shop there anymore.
'Access denied'
ReplyDeleteThe solution is simp!e. Vendors need to STOP hanging gift cards in places where they can be physically accessed. Keep them secure...locked away...till a customer asks for one. Then you take it out of secure storage and load it with money. Problem solved. Of course this is an inconvenience too stores...so they won't do it. Not until forced to. Till then... DON'T buy gift cards. And tell the stores why so they will feel pain and address the issue.
ReplyDeleteSend them a check.
ReplyDelete