Gift cards have a unique number in a magnetic strip that is used to track usage and outstanding balances. This usually works well, and has the benefit that you often won't lose your remaining balance if you lose the gift card, since you can simply call to report the card as stolen or lost.
Now imagine that a scammer comes into a store that displays gift cards on public racks (such as Wal-Mart) with a small and inexpensive mag-strip scanner in his pocket. This scanner can easily read and store the unique gift card serial numbers.
So, the scammer simply grabs some of these gift cards from the rack, finds a quiet place and quickly scans each card to get its unique serial number. They then put the cards back (or leave them somewhere in the store) since they are done with them.
(Incidentally, this high tech approach isn't even needed. The crook can simply copy the unique numbers by hand on a pad of paper. However, this is much more time consuming.)
Depending on the gift card packaging, this can be very easy to accomplish or the crook might need to pry the gift card from its base and then carefully reposition it back after stealing the number. In either case, it's not very difficult for the scammer to do this.
Next, real customers come in to buy some of these gift cards and "charge" them with real money.
How does the scammer know which gift cards have been charged? Every few days, he simply calls the gift card phone number and enters the unique numbers to find out which cards have been charged -- and what the remaining balances are.
Most of these systems don't require a password, so it is
very easy for the scammer to do this. Other times the scammer is able to steal the PIN at the same time as the gift card number.
And since most of these gift cards aren't given to the recipients until Christmas, most of the cards will be *fully charged*!
The scammer can then go on a shopping spree and drain the gift card balances.
If scammers are somewhat more technically sophisticated, they can even purchase a similar real gift card, charge it with $5, and then reprogram the card with a stolen unique ID number -- and use the card to physically shop in the store instead of being "limited" to shopping only online.
According to KOMO TV, a Wal-Mart spokesman says the company "is working with law enforcement at the highest levels possible to rectify the problem and catch the people responsible."
The National Retail Foundation (NRF) confirmed this scam was occurring last week in a press release, and said:
"Reports about a new gift card scam detailing how consumers could lose money from gift cards if criminals steal the card numbers from the back of the card are accurate but somewhat misleading."
ScamBusters Recommendation: Even though this type of gift card scam is now only occurring on a very small scale, we still advise that you don't buy gift cards displayed on public racks since this scam is so simple for scammers to execute. Why take the chance?
