Gift Card Scam
Posted on | December 11, 2006 |
I’m sure you’ve heard about this via your local and other online media outlets but I thought I’d post it here for good measure…Here’s how the latest holiday theft scam works:
- Thieves go to a store where gift cards are hanging on a rack or kiosk. They then copy numbers and merchant names from these gift cards.
- They wait a week or so and then call the 800 number that was on the back of the card to find out if the card has been activated.
- If it has, they go to the store’s website and start shopping - using the stolen gift card number as payment.
- The unsuspecting recipient of the gift card later discovers that the card’s balance has been drained.
The Wisconsin Better Business Bureau is offering these tips to prevent becoming a victim of a scam:
- Don’t buy gift cards that are easily accessible to the public. Purchase them only if they’ve been stored behind a counter or are hand-written gift certificates.
- Before you buy, make sure the gift card hasn’t been tampered with, such as having been removed and then replaced back into its cardboard holder.
- Don’t buy gift cards from internet auction sites or clearinghouses. Often times, those gift cards turn out to be stolen.
- When purchasing a gift card, keep the receipt as proof that you paid for it.
- Immediately after buying a gift card in a store, ask the clerk to scan it to make sure that the balance is correct. Thieves have been known to steal new gift cards and replace them with old, used gift cards. When the bar code on the package is scanned, the stolen card is activated and the buyer now has a worthless gift card.
Sources: Wisconsin Better Business Bureau; Terri’s Consumer Blog at WCCO.com
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December 13th, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Ok, no one loves starbucks more than me, but I learned a good lesson in keeping the card receipts. I reloaded my starbucks card with $50. Then next trip to a Starbucks, the card read $0. LUCKILY I kept the receipt and was able to go back to the Starbucks location and they loaded the card correctly. So, the lesson is to keep the receipt just in case. (The read the card for balance tip would have been helpful at that time……). Good news from all of this: the Starbucks gave me my venti chai tea for free for my troubles. Ahhh, starbucks….