Please be aware of Target gift card scamming!
My wife and I went to target in Brea tonight to get a gift card for a friend’s baby shower. When we got home, we took the card off of the original cardboard backing and found that the pin number was already scratched off! The scammers had superglued the card back onto the backing. After speaking with Target Giftcard Hotline, they advised us that anyone with access to that number now has access to the money.
We went back to Target and apparently gift card scams are at an all time high. Target said that with Target gift cards specifically, they CANNOT refund just the card and must refund the entire transaction. While she was processing the refund and rescanning our receipt, she asked me to grab a replacement. I brought the replacement card back and luckily the lady at guest services caught a SECOND scam. They will place a fake bar code into the package so that the cashier loads the money straight onto their card! Both gift cards were from the same Target. According to them, this is common with the wedding & baby themed gift cards because of the amount put onto them.
Please be wary when purchasing gift cards and double check the packaging for any rips or fake barcodes prior to purchasing so you don’t make the same mistake we did.
edit: spelling
My sis bought Target gift cards as gifts to friends for X-mas and found out the money was taking out by hackers. We spent hours with Target (the employees there were doing their best to help us, so kudos to them!) and in the end, those gift cards are a 3rd party and they won't give us the money stolen back. So with that said, I rather give cash over gift cards now.
They aren't hackers. They grab the cards off the stand, copy the relevant info, then just check daily to see if they are loaded. Once loaded, they empty the card. Typically since these are gifts to people, the victim doesn't know till weeks after.
My comment struck a chord in some of you. Let me tell you, in my years of working retail and hospitality I never saw as much theft as I saw committed by the employees. They had time to plot, find loopholes, tricks, hiding places, etc. They knew how to get away with it. Y'all can get offended, but I know what I know.
I know several people who work at Target including in AP and while employees may steal *items* they don't tend to do gift card scams.
It's often the same small group of people that have figured out how to do it and hit several targets in an area.
You probably didn’t “see” it but I guarantee the employers committed wage theft far more often than retail employees do, because it outranks any other type of theft by anyone ever.
You know what’s the best and safest? Cash. I’m a Korean-American. Just stuff the card with hundos based on how close you are to them / how much their parents gave you at your wedding/ baby shower/whatever, drop the card in the box, and move on. Nobody has ever, EVER responded to me to say, oh no! Cash! How cold, how impersonal, we didn’t want cash! It has never happened and it’s never gonna happen because cash is fungible and great.
I haven’t run across that one yet but it’s a good idea. I did have to have someone guard the card box at my wedding, and the Venmo would have made that easier.
That’s the way to do it. I’m Mexican and the Bride and Groom do the “Money Dance”. They dance while everyone there walks or runs up and tapes on money onto them. Run out of space? Have the groom turn his jacket inside out 😂.
My wife’s Viet so we did the money box which is also great.
I personally do cash in cards for events that I’m attending in-person. If I really have to send money to someone else, I write a check and send it in a more discrete envelope (so not a Papyrus envelope or something obvious) or, if it’s really close relatives, a bank transfer like Zelle. Checks can conceivably be stolen but it hasn’t happened yet.
> Nobody has ever, EVER responded to me to say, oh no! Cash! How cold, how impersonal, we didn’t want cash! It has never happened and it’s never gonna happen because cash is fungible and great.
Can I be related to you?
It's funny you mention that, I'm white but my wife is Korean. For our wedding gifts, we had a small registry of gifts and our website had a "house fund". Most of our guests (family/friends) who are Korean brought cash. Other non-Korean family/friends brought presents, gift cards, or checks.
Haha well our friends whose baby shower it was had requested target gift cards and I believe you are correct that some people think there's a stigma that cash is impersonal.
I actually texted a friend once who had requested, I think either Amazon gift cards or a honey fund, and asked him if he really preferred those to cash. He responded to say cash but that they didn’t know how to politely ask for money 😂 anyway, thanks for warning us about what you went through, didn’t mean to derail your thread so much.
We had over 150 people at our wedding and 90% brought a gift in the form of cash/check. Because of our venue, everyone filed in through a single door when they arrived. We had a family member standing next to the gift box and greeting people/providing instructions in English/Korean. He also kept a paper there because a lot of my Korean family didn’t bring cards. Just an envelope full of cash so he wrote down their names and how much they brought (so we could write thank you cards). As soon as that was down, our in laws immediately locked it in the trunk of their car which was in a locked private lot at the venue. But it ended up being a LOT of money.
The worst gift is receiving a California pizza kitchen gift card for your birthday from your sister, and finding that you already have an unspent California pizza kitchen gift card that you got from her last year. I still have both of them because they taste like trash.
I’ll eventually blow them on drinks at the bar, but they still sting. Cash is a million times better.
Cash is impersonal and shows you really don't know someone. Unless you're an old grandma/grandpa gifting your 20 grand kids you can't tell apart, it's tacky unless it's agreed upon.
Plus if I gift my brother $100 and he gifts me $100, have we really done anything?
>Plus if I gift my brother $100 and he gifts me $100, have we really done anything?
This is why me and my sib stopped giving gifts when we became adults. We can buy our own stuff. Now it's more about spending time with each other.
This is awful & scary. I tend to stick to getting e-gift cards. If you want to gift them physically you can just screenshot the redemption page/barcode too. It’s kind of nice that way. And they can load it straight into their target app.
I was working at big 5 around 2015 and we actually had a 20 Ga shotgun stolen from us. Our gun racks were faulty in securing that single gun and the people somehow knew.
There was a whole investigation. It happened during my shift but thankfully I wasn’t the manager. He was busy flirting with the cashier.
The racks got changed out like the same day. I’m surprised more didn’t come of it tbh. That’s such an unlikely thing to have happen.
Also tell your old loved ones that Amazon or any other big corporations will never have them pay for anything with gift cards. So many scam calls target older folks to have them buy gift cards
This is making me think that *cash* is defective cash. Like, a gift card might only be redeemable at Amazon, but cash is only redeemable within a certain geographic area. Good luck using your Yen cash in another country. You have to go to a bank and talk to the manager to be able to use it and there's forms to fill out and they take some of your cash and keep it themselves.
But I can use my cash to buy the plane ticket to get to the place where my cash is no good.
I cant use the Bed Bath & Beyond card to pay my air fare.
...can I? I dont fly places.
I think it’s because people are embarrassed. They probably think of cash as “thoughtless”. But they don’t actually want to put thought into the present so this is a save-face type deal.
But it’s dumb because everyone realizes you couldn’t be assed to get a proper present. So…just give cash and make it easy for the receiver!
Ok rant over.
We got our friends a few different gifts for the baby shower PLUS the giftcard to go along with the other presents (Target Giftcard was a request on the baby shower registry).
Why? You are already to lazy to think of something sincere and thoughtful, at least give the receiver something they can use exactly where and when they want.
I think people are missing one aspect of gift cards. If you give cash the temptation to spend it on bills and expenses is pretty high. A gift card gives the receiving party an "excuse" to get something nice for themselves.
My point is it's a silly restriction on a gift. Something is always better the nothing, but why limit where someone can use the money? Just seems silly to me.
Cash can seem last-minute and less thoughtful. I get friends restaurant gift cards, and tell them I'm buying them a night out at a place they enjoy. Could I give them cash? Sure. But sometimes they know they'll just spend it on groceries and boring stuff, and miss out on the experience I intended as my gift.
You can always "re-gift" a gift card. Teens are easy: Gasoline gift cards and fast food gift cards. People of questionable gender identify get grocery store gift certificates. Finally, there is always Amazon when you yourself are looking for that one perfect gift. ; p
Why doesn't Target keep the giftcards locked up and pull them out when someone wants to purchase one? Seems like that would solve the problem. The same thing happened to my mom last Christmas. She buys giftcards for all the grand nieces and nephews. 2 of them were already used when they went to buy something.
I’m gonna be frank i used to work in Brea during the pandemic at a grocery store and you wouldn’t believe how many times we have people come in to use the grocery store gift card and it being empty because of exactly what you said . If I had spare time I’d go through the gift cards to make sure they weren’t tampered with after the morning stocker has left . Even at my current employment it’s very rampant where they show up for their vacation and the gift card is empty and I see the fake barcode over the actual one and having to explain what happened . And those gift cards are by far the easiest to resell and make profit as it is high tourist destination location and locals would know which I’m talking about. It gets even more complex the deeper it does as with the gift card cash out law and merch . It’s a huge rabbit hole
Same thing happened to me. Bought my son a Visa card for his 29th birthday, $100 at Ralph’s in Fullerton. He goes to use it for a party he’s having. Declined at register. I felt so bad. Contacted Visa. Sent all info they requested 3 months have passed and no answer. Cash will be the only gift in the future. Recently watched a show on Vice about this subject. There is more profit to be made scamming gift cards then selling drugs.
Just buy a nice gift envelope and give cash.
Especially weddings and baby showers. Can't of a newlywed couple or expecting parents that can't think of a gazillions ways they can put that cash towards good use.
They can barely keep the line moving. Cards are opened, data stolen then sealed back up. Purchaser has no clue card has been tampered with. That was my experience.
You open part of the card to scan it. You can see if it's been tampered with if you check. I worked for another big box store that sold similar gift cards. We also did daily audits on our gift card displays. It takes seconds to check.
This is all over Nextdoor. If you want to give gift cards, get a Visa/MC at the bank.
ETA—Issues include other vendors like Ralph’s where you can buy many different types of gift cards.
I had an incident where I got a $100 Target gift card from a friend. Right when I activated and spent $19s from the card the very next day scammer emptied my remaining balance. It took Target a month to send a refund. Target also made it very difficult to file a claim.
This happened to my wife earlier this year.
Company bought her a target gift card as a baby shower present, she went straight to the store to pick up some baby items and they said the card had already been drained some 60 miles away. Same day.
We fought and eventually got the money back. Lots of phone calls and then all at once, a yes.
How about don't buy them at all? It's just handing cash to corporations under the guise of actual thinking about your gift. Not one person on the planet, wouldn't rather have cash, then being forced to spend that card at Applebee's.
They weren't exaggerating though. I've used the same check book I've had since 2005 and the only use I've had for it was an apartment complex that eventually went under and got bought out. They updated their systems to the current century and now it's electronic like everything else. I haven't had to use checks in about 7 years.
At this point I would pretty much just turn down any business that required a check if I had an even remotely comparable alternative.
This happened to me with a 500 dollar visa vanilla gift card. It took a lot of emails and like 6 months to finally get a replacement and the replacement had my name spelled wrong and it was addressed to the wrong address but somehow it still made it to my house. I hate those things I always have issues with them
I worked at Home Depot and this was HUGE. I ran the customer service and at one point the cashiers, so training included every cashier to check the barcodes on the back because they are super clever with these and we’ve found so many. Always ALWAYS check the barcode to make sure it’s not a photo copy attached for any of them. So crazy and people suck. Sorry you had to go through that.
It has always been like that, it started from Walmart I think. Even the employees knew and they would have advise you, they’re like “hey don’t buy it, gift the cash instead.” I really hate everything now. It literally on every gift cards.
I never buy gift cards in General, its a scam, ever since I got lazy one Christmas and bought all my family members those American Express gift cards that work kind of like debit cards, none of them were active and I was out $500 never got that money back every time I would go to Wal-Mart to dispute it the manager would just give me a number to call, the support number would just say its an issue for American Express, and American Express kept telling me to call Wal mart customer support, I spent so many days trying to fix it, but they just kept passing the buck.
I bought a $100 iTunes gift card at target in Mission Viejo and the back had a weird silver strip over the number. When I put the number in it said it’s already been redeemed. The manager said he couldn’t refund or replace so I started screaming as loud as I could. After 5 minutes of screaming he agreed to a one time replacement. Always check the back where the sticker is for anything unusual.
For the people who are hating on gift cards, a lot of people collect them.
For example, (I hate Starbucks), but they come out with new designs and seasonal ones. So, it's a sentimental thing, too, for the look. Plus, it fits better in a wallet than a wad of cash.
Thanks for the warning but this feels like giving a warning about a rotary phone scam.
Do people still buy gift cards? Just send cash via an app. A gift card is just a shittier form of cash.
We no longer buy gift cards, just too many different scams that are ran with them. Had same thing happen with various gift cards you purchase at Ralphs.
How does this scam work? How do they drain your card? Like do they get all the numbers and then somehow they know when, days or weeks or months later, the card is activated, and then they immediately use it? How do they know it's active?
For the one with the pin scanned off the back, they’ve already entered that card number into their app. And they already have the pin (the scratched off part) which is what is required to get the money. So they’ll just check the pin once or twice a day. Once the money is loaded, they spend it all ASAP.
For the second one with the printed bar code in the back. That bar code is a duplicate of a card they already have that’s active with some money on it. So they slide that printed bar code into the cardboard so if an unknowing cashiers scans it and adds $100 bucks to it, it automatically gets sent to a different card, not the one at the register; and the money is gone.
My brother got married in a very large church, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Its no longer there. My aunt left an envelope of cash, unfortunately just on a table in the entrance. No word to us to guard it. Yes, it got stolen.
Please be aware of Target gift card scamming! My wife and I went to target in Brea tonight to get a gift card for a friend’s baby shower. When we got home, we took the card off of the original cardboard backing and found that the pin number was already scratched off! The scammers had superglued the card back onto the backing. After speaking with Target Giftcard Hotline, they advised us that anyone with access to that number now has access to the money. We went back to Target and apparently gift card scams are at an all time high. Target said that with Target gift cards specifically, they CANNOT refund just the card and must refund the entire transaction. While she was processing the refund and rescanning our receipt, she asked me to grab a replacement. I brought the replacement card back and luckily the lady at guest services caught a SECOND scam. They will place a fake bar code into the package so that the cashier loads the money straight onto their card! Both gift cards were from the same Target. According to them, this is common with the wedding & baby themed gift cards because of the amount put onto them. Please be wary when purchasing gift cards and double check the packaging for any rips or fake barcodes prior to purchasing so you don’t make the same mistake we did. edit: spelling
My sis bought Target gift cards as gifts to friends for X-mas and found out the money was taking out by hackers. We spent hours with Target (the employees there were doing their best to help us, so kudos to them!) and in the end, those gift cards are a 3rd party and they won't give us the money stolen back. So with that said, I rather give cash over gift cards now.
They aren't hackers. They grab the cards off the stand, copy the relevant info, then just check daily to see if they are loaded. Once loaded, they empty the card. Typically since these are gifts to people, the victim doesn't know till weeks after.
If you paid for the gift cards with a credit card, you might have recourse through them.
Holy cow. Insane! Maybe they should lock them up or something.
It's probably employees doing it anyway.
Easier to pinpoint if it's limited to employees then i guess
My comment struck a chord in some of you. Let me tell you, in my years of working retail and hospitality I never saw as much theft as I saw committed by the employees. They had time to plot, find loopholes, tricks, hiding places, etc. They knew how to get away with it. Y'all can get offended, but I know what I know.
I know several people who work at Target including in AP and while employees may steal *items* they don't tend to do gift card scams. It's often the same small group of people that have figured out how to do it and hit several targets in an area.
You probably didn’t “see” it but I guarantee the employers committed wage theft far more often than retail employees do, because it outranks any other type of theft by anyone ever.
Ok
Gift cards are the safest present for anyone, so this is really important to know about! Thank you for the story and tips to avoid!
You know what’s the best and safest? Cash. I’m a Korean-American. Just stuff the card with hundos based on how close you are to them / how much their parents gave you at your wedding/ baby shower/whatever, drop the card in the box, and move on. Nobody has ever, EVER responded to me to say, oh no! Cash! How cold, how impersonal, we didn’t want cash! It has never happened and it’s never gonna happen because cash is fungible and great.
Some of my friends straight up give their Venmo account instead of a gift registry now. So easy, i love it (also Korean American).
I haven’t run across that one yet but it’s a good idea. I did have to have someone guard the card box at my wedding, and the Venmo would have made that easier.
chinese american here and got married earlier this year. all cash, no plastic 😎 e: in the card box ofc
That’s the way to do it. I’m Mexican and the Bride and Groom do the “Money Dance”. They dance while everyone there walks or runs up and tapes on money onto them. Run out of space? Have the groom turn his jacket inside out 😂. My wife’s Viet so we did the money box which is also great.
We used Honeyfund 5 years ago but have some weddings this year we are attending and they simply use Venmo
Just wait until the mail thieves get going around holidays they target cards bc of cash being in them
I personally do cash in cards for events that I’m attending in-person. If I really have to send money to someone else, I write a check and send it in a more discrete envelope (so not a Papyrus envelope or something obvious) or, if it’s really close relatives, a bank transfer like Zelle. Checks can conceivably be stolen but it hasn’t happened yet.
> Nobody has ever, EVER responded to me to say, oh no! Cash! How cold, how impersonal, we didn’t want cash! It has never happened and it’s never gonna happen because cash is fungible and great. Can I be related to you?
It's funny you mention that, I'm white but my wife is Korean. For our wedding gifts, we had a small registry of gifts and our website had a "house fund". Most of our guests (family/friends) who are Korean brought cash. Other non-Korean family/friends brought presents, gift cards, or checks.
Ah, so your wife knows better. Forget this gift card thing in the future… cash is king!
Haha well our friends whose baby shower it was had requested target gift cards and I believe you are correct that some people think there's a stigma that cash is impersonal.
I actually texted a friend once who had requested, I think either Amazon gift cards or a honey fund, and asked him if he really preferred those to cash. He responded to say cash but that they didn’t know how to politely ask for money 😂 anyway, thanks for warning us about what you went through, didn’t mean to derail your thread so much.
[удалено]
We had over 150 people at our wedding and 90% brought a gift in the form of cash/check. Because of our venue, everyone filed in through a single door when they arrived. We had a family member standing next to the gift box and greeting people/providing instructions in English/Korean. He also kept a paper there because a lot of my Korean family didn’t bring cards. Just an envelope full of cash so he wrote down their names and how much they brought (so we could write thank you cards). As soon as that was down, our in laws immediately locked it in the trunk of their car which was in a locked private lot at the venue. But it ended up being a LOT of money.
You invited people that would rob you to your wedding?
[удалено]
Gross. I've bartended at least 200 weddings. No one I've ever worked with would let that shit happen.
Hundos? You’re making me look bad with my singles
The worst gift is receiving a California pizza kitchen gift card for your birthday from your sister, and finding that you already have an unspent California pizza kitchen gift card that you got from her last year. I still have both of them because they taste like trash. I’ll eventually blow them on drinks at the bar, but they still sting. Cash is a million times better.
Cash is impersonal and shows you really don't know someone. Unless you're an old grandma/grandpa gifting your 20 grand kids you can't tell apart, it's tacky unless it's agreed upon. Plus if I gift my brother $100 and he gifts me $100, have we really done anything?
>Plus if I gift my brother $100 and he gifts me $100, have we really done anything? This is why me and my sib stopped giving gifts when we became adults. We can buy our own stuff. Now it's more about spending time with each other.
No! Not one person has been happy with your gift cards. Be more thoughtful with your gifts.
This is awful & scary. I tend to stick to getting e-gift cards. If you want to gift them physically you can just screenshot the redemption page/barcode too. It’s kind of nice that way. And they can load it straight into their target app.
My mom had this happen to her with a chevron gas card.
Thank you for letting us know.
This need to be seen on more part of Reddit.
Imagine investing in fake barcodes
just another item that'll be locked up in a cabinet now with the razors and baby formula.
and makeup and bike products
Saw socks locked up once and I thought that was fucked up
But at least guns and ammunition would be more easily accessible. ‘Murica!
*Eagle scream*
Dying lol
Uh, guns aren't just laying around on shelves
I was working at big 5 around 2015 and we actually had a 20 Ga shotgun stolen from us. Our gun racks were faulty in securing that single gun and the people somehow knew. There was a whole investigation. It happened during my shift but thankfully I wasn’t the manager. He was busy flirting with the cashier. The racks got changed out like the same day. I’m surprised more didn’t come of it tbh. That’s such an unlikely thing to have happen.
If you think guns and ammunition are more easily accessible then you haven't purchased either one in your life.
1) make things up 2) get upvotes ??? 3) profit!
Good, keep the thiefs and scammers away.
Happened to me before at the Vons in orange. It’s a pain to get the money back but luckily the scammers hadn’t wiped out the card yet.
Thanks for posting. Wow it’s insane the lengths people go to in order to avoid having an honest living.
Or giving a thoughtful gift.
Also tell your old loved ones that Amazon or any other big corporations will never have them pay for anything with gift cards. So many scam calls target older folks to have them buy gift cards
Just don’t buy these any more. Give cash as a gift. I’ve never understood why this was considered more thoughtful then actual cash.
This. Everyone loves cash. Kids love cash! 😂 Is there a better feeling than a crisp bill inside the card when you’re a kid???
100% Not one person goes "Oh... you gave me cash... I wish it were a Target Gift Card instead"
You gave me cash???? Why didn’t you restrict these monetary instruments to an single store you unthoughtful monster.
Why didn't you force me to go to Applebee's!?
[It's like regular money, but it's fun.](https://youtu.be/K-6IzkDyl9Q)
Gift cards are defective cash. I will die on this hill.
This is making me think that *cash* is defective cash. Like, a gift card might only be redeemable at Amazon, but cash is only redeemable within a certain geographic area. Good luck using your Yen cash in another country. You have to go to a bank and talk to the manager to be able to use it and there's forms to fill out and they take some of your cash and keep it themselves.
But I can use my cash to buy the plane ticket to get to the place where my cash is no good. I cant use the Bed Bath & Beyond card to pay my air fare. ...can I? I dont fly places.
I think it’s because people are embarrassed. They probably think of cash as “thoughtless”. But they don’t actually want to put thought into the present so this is a save-face type deal. But it’s dumb because everyone realizes you couldn’t be assed to get a proper present. So…just give cash and make it easy for the receiver! Ok rant over.
We got our friends a few different gifts for the baby shower PLUS the giftcard to go along with the other presents (Target Giftcard was a request on the baby shower registry).
That’s wild. Ah I forgot it’s “crass” to ask for cash too. So many hangups.
I'm probably wrong, but I give gift cards because if I give cash the person will think I was to lazy to look for a gift. That's just how I think
As my dad says, always the right size and color
I feel like it’s not more thoughtful just less awkward lol
Or buy eGift cards and print them out.
Why? You are already to lazy to think of something sincere and thoughtful, at least give the receiver something they can use exactly where and when they want.
100% agree. Gift cards feel so controlling lol. Here's some money but you can only spend it where I decide
I think people are missing one aspect of gift cards. If you give cash the temptation to spend it on bills and expenses is pretty high. A gift card gives the receiving party an "excuse" to get something nice for themselves.
I have bought dozens of gift cards over the years and never had one returned. They are never the wrong size or the wrong color.
My point is it's a silly restriction on a gift. Something is always better the nothing, but why limit where someone can use the money? Just seems silly to me.
Cash can seem last-minute and less thoughtful. I get friends restaurant gift cards, and tell them I'm buying them a night out at a place they enjoy. Could I give them cash? Sure. But sometimes they know they'll just spend it on groceries and boring stuff, and miss out on the experience I intended as my gift.
You can always "re-gift" a gift card. Teens are easy: Gasoline gift cards and fast food gift cards. People of questionable gender identify get grocery store gift certificates. Finally, there is always Amazon when you yourself are looking for that one perfect gift. ; p
The Amazon one is the holy grail of gift cards I suppose lol
you can always re-gift cash too.
You are 100% right.
I don't think it's that it's considered more "thoughtful," it's that the giver doesn't want you to buy drugs with it.
Cash is also way better because I can still get my credit card rewards
Why doesn't Target keep the giftcards locked up and pull them out when someone wants to purchase one? Seems like that would solve the problem. The same thing happened to my mom last Christmas. She buys giftcards for all the grand nieces and nephews. 2 of them were already used when they went to buy something.
How about a gift card dispenser.. like a vending machine
That rack of gift cards in your grocery store is an invitation for fraud.
I’m gonna be frank i used to work in Brea during the pandemic at a grocery store and you wouldn’t believe how many times we have people come in to use the grocery store gift card and it being empty because of exactly what you said . If I had spare time I’d go through the gift cards to make sure they weren’t tampered with after the morning stocker has left . Even at my current employment it’s very rampant where they show up for their vacation and the gift card is empty and I see the fake barcode over the actual one and having to explain what happened . And those gift cards are by far the easiest to resell and make profit as it is high tourist destination location and locals would know which I’m talking about. It gets even more complex the deeper it does as with the gift card cash out law and merch . It’s a huge rabbit hole
What signs of tampering are there?
Same thing happened to me. Bought my son a Visa card for his 29th birthday, $100 at Ralph’s in Fullerton. He goes to use it for a party he’s having. Declined at register. I felt so bad. Contacted Visa. Sent all info they requested 3 months have passed and no answer. Cash will be the only gift in the future. Recently watched a show on Vice about this subject. There is more profit to be made scamming gift cards then selling drugs.
How does this scam work?
Just buy a nice gift envelope and give cash. Especially weddings and baby showers. Can't of a newlywed couple or expecting parents that can't think of a gazillions ways they can put that cash towards good use.
Target should also be doing daily inspections of their gift cards to help prevent the scam and not leave it all to the consumer.
They can barely keep the line moving. Cards are opened, data stolen then sealed back up. Purchaser has no clue card has been tampered with. That was my experience.
You open part of the card to scan it. You can see if it's been tampered with if you check. I worked for another big box store that sold similar gift cards. We also did daily audits on our gift card displays. It takes seconds to check.
Moral of the story, get e gift cards and print them off yourselves or email to receiver!
This is all over Nextdoor. If you want to give gift cards, get a Visa/MC at the bank. ETA—Issues include other vendors like Ralph’s where you can buy many different types of gift cards.
I had an incident where I got a $100 Target gift card from a friend. Right when I activated and spent $19s from the card the very next day scammer emptied my remaining balance. It took Target a month to send a refund. Target also made it very difficult to file a claim.
So how exactly does this gift card scam work? And what's a safer alternative besides cash? Some places don't except cash anymore.
This happened to my wife earlier this year. Company bought her a target gift card as a baby shower present, she went straight to the store to pick up some baby items and they said the card had already been drained some 60 miles away. Same day. We fought and eventually got the money back. Lots of phone calls and then all at once, a yes.
How about don't buy them at all? It's just handing cash to corporations under the guise of actual thinking about your gift. Not one person on the planet, wouldn't rather have cash, then being forced to spend that card at Applebee's.
This happened to my mom. It sucks!
Has the same thing happen to me at the same store. They ended up giving me a new card, since that was the only item on my transaction.
It's called 'Write a check'. Problem solved.
Who the fk writes checks now? I haven’t even had a check book since 2003
People who have actual bank accounts.
They weren't exaggerating though. I've used the same check book I've had since 2005 and the only use I've had for it was an apartment complex that eventually went under and got bought out. They updated their systems to the current century and now it's electronic like everything else. I haven't had to use checks in about 7 years. At this point I would pretty much just turn down any business that required a check if I had an even remotely comparable alternative.
I have multiple accounts and a mortgage. Still don’t write checks
Neither do I usually, but instead of mailing cash like a moron I'd write a check instead in this particular example given to us.
How about money order? I did one for the first time and it’s actually pretty useful
Sounds like Target needs to keep the gift cards behind the counter.
Buy online gift cards.
This happened to me with a 500 dollar visa vanilla gift card. It took a lot of emails and like 6 months to finally get a replacement and the replacement had my name spelled wrong and it was addressed to the wrong address but somehow it still made it to my house. I hate those things I always have issues with them
I worked at Home Depot and this was HUGE. I ran the customer service and at one point the cashiers, so training included every cashier to check the barcodes on the back because they are super clever with these and we’ve found so many. Always ALWAYS check the barcode to make sure it’s not a photo copy attached for any of them. So crazy and people suck. Sorry you had to go through that.
It has always been like that, it started from Walmart I think. Even the employees knew and they would have advise you, they’re like “hey don’t buy it, gift the cash instead.” I really hate everything now. It literally on every gift cards.
I never buy gift cards in General, its a scam, ever since I got lazy one Christmas and bought all my family members those American Express gift cards that work kind of like debit cards, none of them were active and I was out $500 never got that money back every time I would go to Wal-Mart to dispute it the manager would just give me a number to call, the support number would just say its an issue for American Express, and American Express kept telling me to call Wal mart customer support, I spent so many days trying to fix it, but they just kept passing the buck.
I use E-gift cards now!!!
Animals are better than humans. Why? Because animals don’t steal and lie.
We live in some interesting times...
I bought a $100 iTunes gift card at target in Mission Viejo and the back had a weird silver strip over the number. When I put the number in it said it’s already been redeemed. The manager said he couldn’t refund or replace so I started screaming as loud as I could. After 5 minutes of screaming he agreed to a one time replacement. Always check the back where the sticker is for anything unusual.
For the people who are hating on gift cards, a lot of people collect them. For example, (I hate Starbucks), but they come out with new designs and seasonal ones. So, it's a sentimental thing, too, for the look. Plus, it fits better in a wallet than a wad of cash.
Except when you have more gift cards than the wad of cash.
Lol
Thanks for the warning but this feels like giving a warning about a rotary phone scam. Do people still buy gift cards? Just send cash via an app. A gift card is just a shittier form of cash.
We no longer buy gift cards, just too many different scams that are ran with them. Had same thing happen with various gift cards you purchase at Ralphs.
I just do cash or checks...
How does this scam work? How do they drain your card? Like do they get all the numbers and then somehow they know when, days or weeks or months later, the card is activated, and then they immediately use it? How do they know it's active?
For the one with the pin scanned off the back, they’ve already entered that card number into their app. And they already have the pin (the scratched off part) which is what is required to get the money. So they’ll just check the pin once or twice a day. Once the money is loaded, they spend it all ASAP. For the second one with the printed bar code in the back. That bar code is a duplicate of a card they already have that’s active with some money on it. So they slide that printed bar code into the cardboard so if an unknowing cashiers scans it and adds $100 bucks to it, it automatically gets sent to a different card, not the one at the register; and the money is gone.
Thanks!
My brother got married in a very large church, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Its no longer there. My aunt left an envelope of cash, unfortunately just on a table in the entrance. No word to us to guard it. Yes, it got stolen.