Thursday, September 1, 2016

GIFT CARD SCAM
 by: Patt Harvey

United Way 211 in Kansas City, recently received a call from a consumer who had been scammed for $400 through a gift/credit card purchase.  He reported receiving a phone call from a person identifying himself as an employee of the power company serving the consumer’s area.  He was calling to remind the man that his electricity bill  was delinquent and subject to shutoff in three days.  As we know, customer service employees often make such calls and refer the customer to a service such as 211 or another local agency for possible referrals. Often the consumer has the money but is unable to get to a payment location.  This “helpful employee” told the customer, “there is a Wal-Mart store about two blocks from you and they accept gift card payments and will route them to us. Select the I-Tunes card , take it to the cashier to pay and be activated. As soon as you get home you can call in to make your payment.”
The man did as told, went home, called in his payment and relaxed.  Three days later he returned home from visiting a friend to discover his electricity had been disconnected for non-payment.  He called the utility provider only to be told there was no record of a payment being made.  They suggested he call the police department and report the incident.  Unfortunately the police officer told him he was probably the victim of an electronic scam and explained to him how it works. 
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 or a grocery store) with a small and inexpensive mag-strip scanner in his pocket.  This scanner can easily read and store the unique gift card serial numbers.  The scammer simply grabs some of these gift cards from  the rack, finds a quiet place and quickly scans each card from a particular merchant to get its unique serial number.  They then put the cards back since  they are done with them. Next, real customers come in to buy some of these gift cards and charge them with real money.  Every few hours the scammer 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. Most of the cards will be fully charged and the scammer can then go on a shopping spree and drain the gift card balances.  Law enforcement suggests that customers do NOT purchase gift cards unless they are in protective wrapping or are kept under the counter in a secure  location with a sales associate.

There is a happy ending to this story: two emergency assistance agencies were able to assist the caller in paying his bill.  

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