This story about a drug ring selling fraudulent gift cards makes me thing that perhaps eBay and Craigslist aren’t the best places to buy gift cards online. Perhaps using one of the sites listed on our resources page would provide a potential for a refund of the card turned out to be bogus.
Archive for the ‘Scams’ Category
This story about a restaurant employee pocketing the cash and then giving customers zero value gift cards sure sounds bad for gift cards. But is it really? How can customers try to redeem $150,000 in invalid gift cards that should have been valid over 9 years and the management not notice that something was going on? Baffling.
The scam played out with Wal-Mart gift cards is a well known one; thieves scan the cards on the rack, wait for them to be activated by checking the Wal-Mart website, and then with card writers, program gift cards with the same info and use them before the purchaser to buy stuff from Wal-Mart, which they then return for cash.
Here is a story about the first time this scan has played out on American Express gift cards. If you have bought Visa, Mastercard, or Amex gift cards from a display at Safeway, Walgreens, etc. they are very well packaged such that you can’t scan the card until the package is opened, so that someone used this scam is a surprise to me. Perhaps the cards were on display without such packaging.
I recently ran across an article in the Washington Post from February of 2006. The article talks about how difficult it is to use up small amounts left on Visa and MasterCard Gift Cards. A couple of quotes from the article caught my eye:
“Visa spokeswoman Rhonda Bentz said the company was unaware of the problem of split transactions until The Washington Post raised the issue. “Now we’ll be looking into it,” Bentz said.”
“MasterCard and American Express officials said they have been slowly rolling out new technology to make it easier for merchants and gift card users to know a card’s balance so it can be used with cash or another credit card to buy something for more than the card’s value.”
Very very few merchants allow you to check the balance of your gift card. Visa’s site lists about 15, while MasterCard’s site lists none, but says “some” can. Split transactions have not gotten any easier in the last two an a half years either.
If these companies are working on fixes to these problems, global warming appears to be melting glaciers faster.
September 11, 2008 by Advocate · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Fees & Breakage, Legal & Regulatory, Scams
Filed under: Fees & Breakage, Legal & Regulatory, Scams
Speaking of terminology, an article in today’s Wall Street Journal talks about “prepaid debit” cards. As debt among college students has risen to record levels in the last several years, colleges have gotten criticized for allowing credit card companies to aggressively promote credit cards to students on campus. In response, many colleges have limited credit card companies ability to hawk credit cards to students.
The result, according to the article is that banks are now pushing what they call prepaid debit cards. These are essentially the same as the open-loop (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) gift cards, but they are of the re-loadable variety. Essentially the same product but with a different name.
Oh, by the way, these cards are really loaded with fees.
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