Our gift card resources page lists a couple of sites (Bidees, DFWbid) that have special types of auctions where you bid on items with specially purchased auction credits and any bids that are not winning are lost. From the get go I felt these were nothing more than scammy auctions that benefited the company much more […]
Archive for the ‘Scams’ Category
I recently came across a story about an IRS employee arrested for stealing gift cards from the mail being delivered to the IRS facility where he worked. Apparently stealing gift cards from the mail isn’t limited to Postal employees. Now you have to work about the workers in the mail room at your business. If you […]
This story about gift card thieves is both amusing and educational. On the amusing side, the thieves were caught because Toys-R-Us officials became suspicious when 4,600 calls to the automated gift-card balance line came from a single phone number at the thieves house, which ultimately resulted in thieves being arrested. On the educational side, it reminds […]
This is interesting. Here is an article that completely hammers what they call “rebate cards.” The claim is that companies make rebates incredibly hard to get and by issuing rebate cards instead of checks, they make them hard to spend too. They are so bad in fact that the Canadian government calls them deceptive and has […]
A startup called rackup has developed a new discount gift card site that uses a complicated short and quick auction scheme to sell gift cards at a discount (plus the chance to win an added value bonus). The average discount is 18%. They have apparently managed to attract $3.5 million in funding? Consumers can already get […]
It is never a good idea to buy something from Criagslist that you can not verify on the spot. Gift cards are no different, as evidenced by a recent sting against two individuals selling bogus amusement park gift cards.
I’ve paid enough attention to know that, while open-loop gift cards (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) may be a rip off, you shouldn’t be too concerned about the cards being hacked, which is actually a big problem with store-specific gift cards. With close-loop/store specific cards, hackers often scan the cards in-store to get the numbers, wait for […]
I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal today and was going to write a piece on it when I came across such a bit from cato-at-liberty.org: Posted by Mark A. Calabria Little noticed in the recently enacted credit card bill was a provision prohibiting retailers and financial institutions from issuing gift cards that expired with […]
In this story, a Boston police officer suggests an easy way to spot gift cards that have been reassigned with stolen credit card numbers; compare the numbers on the card to the last four digits on the receipt. If they don’t match, it is a fake.
Scratch that (see post below). One theory is that hackers are merely purchasing iTunes gift cards with stolen credit cards and reselling them.
In a major blow to Apple, Chinese hackers have cracked the iTunes gift card algorithm and are selling iTunes gift cards for pennies on the dollar. (article)
Don’t we know this already? Here is another example of a store that had their gift cards on display so anyone could copy down the numbers or scan the cards, clone them, and wait until they were activated. Don’t we know that card data needs to be protected already? The incidence of this kind of thing […]
Apparently a member of the night crew at a Post Office in Willow Grove Pennsylvania stole gift cards that were intended to be used to reward employees of the post office. In all, he stole 35 of the $5 gift cards. Five dollar gift cards? This could help explain what is wrong with the Postal Service, […]
GiftCardRescue.com has launched a site GiftCardBalance.com that lists the contact information (URL’s and phone numbers) for quite a few gift cards. It is a convenient place to find the balance check information. Or, you could just look on the back of your card for the same information, seeing as you are going to need your […]
February 22, 2009 by Advocate · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Fees & Breakage, Legal & Regulatory, Scams
Filed under: Fees & Breakage, Legal & Regulatory, Scams
This has to be the most blatant example of the government not “getting” gift cards and the ridiculous fees they charge. The governments in 30 states are essentially using reloadable gift cards issued by banks such as BofA, Chase, and US Bancorp to pay people their unemployment benefits. The problem is, the cards include all […]
I don’t quite understand exactly what the thieves are doing to the gift cards, but apparently they are modifying them and trying to pass them off as regular credit cards. (article) The bad news is that more of this kind of thing will only make retailers more reluctant to accept open-loop gift cards.
Apparently open-loop (Visa) type gift cards are a favorite of thieves that work with stolen credit card numbers because gift cards when presented at the cash register are generally easier to scan with – they don’t require any ID since they don’t actually have a name on them. So, thieves like to load gift cards […]
This will be the third case of fraudsters managing to hack open-loop gift cards I have seen. (article) They are generally harder to scam because they are so well packaged it is nearly impossible to get the card out of the packaging and swipe it (to then later clone it and wait for it to […]
I pay attention to stories related to gift cards and this story is the second case of open-loop gift card fraud I have ever seen. In this case, as in the previous case, it was an inside job. You should feel pretty safe buying an open-loop gift card (rip-off fee considerations notwithstanding) as long as the […]
There have been more and more instances of employees getting caught putting value on their own gift cards instead of customers gift cards when they purchase them, like this story from Wal-Mart. This is in addition to the scams where people scan gift cards still on the shelves and then clone them when they are activated. […]
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