Greg's Corner

Gift cards still popular among scammers

By Greg Collier

Within the past year or so, it seems like scammers have been leaning more toward Zelle and cryptocurrency to steal from their victims. Prior to that, gift cards seemed to be used in just about every phone and online scam. Scammers would get their victims to buy scores of gift cards for whatever the scam entailed, and then had the victims read the card numbers to them. The money on the cards would then be depleted immediately by the scammers, and the victim would have no way of recouping their financial loss.

While git card scams may not be as prevalent as they used to be, they’re still out there. For example, a man from Arizona recently lost $1000 to a gift card scam. This also took the form of a used car scam. The man was looking for a truck and found one online. The seller claimed to be a serviceman and was selling the truck at such a low price because he was deploying soon.

The seller also claimed that he was selling the car through eBay and needed the man to buy eBay gift cards to purchase the vehicle. The man bought the cards at a local store and was even warned about scams by a store employee. The man went through with the purchase anyway, and provided the supposed seller with the numbers from the back of the cards. Of course, the truck never existed, and the scammer cut off communication immediately with their victim.

Before we get into the warnings about gift cards, there were a few red flags you should know about first. If an item is being sold at a steep discount and the seller claims to be a military member who is shipping out, that’s a good indicator of a scam. Scammers love using this story, as it tends to make them sound more trustworthy.

Also, while eBay does have its own vehicle marketplace, you don’t pay the seller directly with gift cards. They also do not have a vehicle shipping program, which many scammers claim.

Lastly, unless you’re actually giving someone a gift, gift cards should never be used as a form of payment to people you don’t know. No legitimate company, agency, or online seller, will ever ask for gift cards as payment. They are the currency of the scammer, since they’re virtually untraceable once the card is depleted.

Video: Milan man falls victim to eBay gift card scam