How to avoid the scam:Don’t buy gift cards off of racks of cards displayed publicly. It's easier for scammers to pick cards off these types of displays and run them through a magstripe reader. Instead, request a gift card from behind the counter. Damaged packaging scams The scam:A sca...
Look for gift cards from other retailers with the same parent company.Say you wanted to buy furniture from Pottery Barn using a gift card, and Raise.com offered Pottery Barn gift cards at a 2.2% discount. However, you can also use West Elm or Williams Sonoma gift cards at Pottery Barn, ...
Sometimes a scam can take place before the card is even purchased because a scammer can tamper with the cards at the store and put them back on the shelf.(Sacramento County Sheriff's Office) "Gift card draining is a numbers game. The more cards that scammers can drain, the more money ...
Go to FTC.gov/giftcards or ebay.com/giftcardscams to learn more about gift card scams. We will never ask you to email your personal information. Remember, if eBay needs you to update your account or provide any information, we always send a copy of our request to your Messages folder ...
Getting gift cards? Avoid these scamsStephanie Zimmermann
Another reason these gift card scams are hard to catch is because gift cards are, as the name implies, usually gifts. The person who bought the card isn’t the person who ultimately uses the card. So if someone goes to use a card they got for a gift and it doesn’t work, it can...
Take a close look at the packaging on any gift cards you buy in person. Breyault recommends checking if the “scratch-off has been messed with” or if “the sticker you pull off has been removed and reapplied.” In addition to anything else that may look suspect, “those are signs tha...
Go to FTC.gov/giftcards or ebay.com/giftcardscams to learn more about gift card scams. We will never ask you to email your personal information. Remember, if eBay needs you to update your account or provide any information, we always send a copy of our request to your Messages folder ...
I would also say as you're getting these, use them sooner rather than later. A lot of us end up holding on to gift cards and either we lose money because of scams or because we're our own worst enemy. About half of Americans have unused gift cards and in total, they're worth abo...
Open-loop gift cardsoffer the equivalent of cash—or more precisely, a credit or debit card that can be used at any merchant where that card is accepted, as well as online.2Many of the major charge or credit card issuers/processors, such as American Express, Visa, Discover, and MasterCard...