{"id":1341,"date":"2012-02-28T01:50:54","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T09:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1341"},"modified":"2012-02-28T01:50:54","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T09:50:54","slug":"dont-fall-for-text-messages-claiming-free-gift-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1341","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t fall for text messages claiming free gift cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/text.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1342\" title=\"text\" src=\"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/text-300x167.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/text-300x167.png 300w, http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/text.png 468w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The old adage &#8220;if it sounds too good to be true, it is&#8221; clearly applies in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kmov.com\/news\/investigates\/Text-message-service-promises-100-gift-card-140614923.html\" target=\"_blank\">this example<\/a> of SPAM text messages claiming gift cards at a highly discounted rate.<\/p>\n<p>There are several red-flags that show this type of advertisement is likely a scam:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Unsolicited telemarketing via automated messages <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/guides\/unwanted-telephone-marketing-calls\" target=\"_blank\">is illega<\/a>l.\u00a0 This includes unsolicited telemarketing text messages.\u00a0 Anyone that sends you such a text is flouting the law and is unlikely to be offering anything legitimate.<\/li>\n<li>Companies just don&#8217;t give away something for nothing.\u00a0 The best discount you can hope for on a gift card is from one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/resources.html\" target=\"_blank\">many secondary marketplaces<\/a> that exist.\u00a0 You are unlikely to get better than a 20% discount on a gift card an popular gift cards (like Walmart) are in high demand and sell for a much smaller discount.<\/li>\n<li>The text messages claim the gift cards are free but upon further investigation, there is a small fee.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The old adage &#8220;if it sounds too good to be true, it is&#8221; clearly applies in this example of SPAM text messages claiming gift cards at a highly discounted rate. There are several red-flags that show this type of advertisement is likely a scam: Unsolicited telemarketing via automated messages is illegal.\u00a0 This includes unsolicited telemarketing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scams","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}