Holiday Shoppers Urged To Beware Of Scam Involving Gift Cards

BRANDON, FL — While gift cards are popular during the holiday season, they're not always as secure a gift as giving a sweater or pair of slippers.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister and the Tampa Bay Regional Intelligence Center are asking the public to be aware of a fraud scam involving gift cards.

Scammers are swiping gift cards from stores and covering the cards with a bar code from another gift card they already activated. The scammers then return to the store and place the gift cards back on the sales racks. When a customer purchases the tampered gift card, the cashier activates the card by scanning the code. The money is then loaded to the scammer's already-activated card rather than the card purchased by the customer.

"Remember, anyone who has the number on a gift card has access to the funds on that card," said Chronister. "Since gift cards can be used like cash, they are an easy target for thieves around the holiday shopping season. We're asking shoppers to thoroughly check the cards they are purchasing for any signs of tampering before leaving the store to help stop this crime from occurring."

Both shoppers and retailers should be on the lookout for gift cards with abnormal tears or wrinkles in the packaging, scratched off pin numbers or gift cards with numbers on the back that do not match the numbers on the labeling.

Shoppers can also protect themselves by keeping their receipt for proof of purchase, reporting suspicious-looking cards to a store manager and asking the cashier for permission to open gift cards at the time of purchase to verify that the card has not been tampered with.