The old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it is” 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. This includes unsolicited telemarketing […]
Archive for the ‘Scams’ Category
An article in our local paper (Daily Post 120223 gift card scam) highlights a slight variation of an old threat. One of the most common and long-running scams involves gift cards displayed within reach of customers that contain the gift card number in numerical or bar-code format visible on the packaging. Thieves simply scan the […]
We’ve reported many times before on gift cards being stolen by Postal employees (like here, here, and here) and employees of other package carriers and even employees that deliver mail in large buildings. What is surprising is that people still send gift card unprotected through the mail. As a reminder for the holiday season, when […]
John over at GiftCardBin sent us this report of a new scam: I was contacted earlier today from a lady who wanted to sell us a gift card. She was unfamiliar with the process but she had a Lowes gift card and was referred to the site by a friend. I like to find out […]
I’ve seen reports previously about telephone scams where thieves call people and tell them there is a problem with their bank account and they need to verify information. People seem to trust that a phone call is legitimate and readily hand over personal information, including account numbers and passwords. The results of this of course […]
While this story has little relevance for gift card consumers, it is just too ridiculous to ignore. Earlier this month, a man called a 24-hour Wal-Mart in Columbus, Ohio, at 1 AM and told an associate he was with Wal-Mart’s IT department. The caller instructed the associate to activate gift cards, read him those card […]
It must be hard for the non-techies of the world to keep up with all the latest tech terminology. I just read an article entitled “New scam: Cloned gift cards, spyware that tracks reloading.” What the thief did was to write a program that constantly accessed the merchant’s card balance checking website to check to […]
Technology often creates problems. With the advent of gift cards and the electronic systems behind them, came the potential for problems and abuse. We’ve seen plenty of examples of where technology has been used against retailers and consumers such as in the fraudulent cloning of gift cards and siphoning of their funds. What you may […]
One of the oldest and most successful gift card scams is called gift card cloning. To clone a gift card, thieves grab the information from unactivated gift cards on store shelves, duplicate the cards using a magnetic card reader/writer, and wait for the cards to be activated. Once activated, they spend the gift cards before […]
A few times in my life I’ve bought tickets for an event, such as a concert or baseball game, from a scalper in the vicinity of the event itself. The results have been mixed; sometimes the tickets are what they say the are, sometimes not, but I went into them with the full knowledge that […]
I did a post the other day on bogus gift card websites and how to spot them. Today I was presented with another humorous example of one of these type of bogus websites which may be as benign as trying to capture eyeballs for ads or direct traffic to other affiliated sites, or could possibly […]
Imagine walking through an open-air bazaar in a third world country. People are yelling at you from all sides, groping at you, making outrageous claims about how they have the best deals. Someone might attempt to pick-pocket you. Would you use your credit card at one of these merchants? Not if you were smart, as […]
The latest scam to involve gift cards is a decidedly low-tech one. It looks like someone crashed a bunch of weddings in California and stole the piles of gift cards (and cash) given to the bride and groom and has been doing so for several years. The problem is that gift cards are usually about […]
Anyone who has tried to use up the last few bucks on their open-loop gift card knows that most retailers don’t support split tender transactions, much less even know what one is. A split tender transaction is where you pay for something using two different kinds of payment, such as a few dollars from your […]
Apparently inComm, the company behind the issue of Vanilla Mastercard prepaid gift cards accidentally issued some cards that when activated, had no limit on them and allowed the holder to spend way past amount the cards should have been limited to. This is the first I’ve heard of a glitch like this for such a […]
We just became aware of a new scam involving open-loop gift cards. Gift card scams involving closed-loop, or retailer specific gift cards (like Target or Wal-Mart) are common. Thieves can easily get the information necessary to identify and duplicate the card from the outside of most of these type of gift cards, which are displayed […]
We’ve previously reported on bogus free gift card scams on Facebook, and bogus free gift card SPAM emails, well now there is another tact that scammers are using by offering free gift cards: text messaging. It goes like this, you receive an unsolicited text message purporting to be from Wal-Mart and offering free gift cards […]
In another attempt to get people to go for bogus free gift card offers, this scammy press release claims to be about how to identify real free gift card offers from fake ones. But reading it ought to give anyone reason for concern. According to the policy of the company following things are mandatory in […]
Here is an interesting comment to a post on Plastic Jungle: I was selling Visa Gift cards on Ebay for $125 for a $100 card. I couldn’t figure out why they would pay more but was happy they were. After ebay and paypal fees and shipping, I only made around $10. Well, around a week […]
If my SPAM filter was less efficient I might have alerted people to the abundance of gift card scams that exist via SPAM earlier, but alas, someone recently forwarded me what I am sure people are getting every day. These scams are no different than the ones that have flourished on Facebook in the last […]
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