Holiday shoppers warned to beware of 3 types of gift card scams
CHICAGO (CBS) – In store or online, holiday shopping is in full swing and so are the headaches of gift giving.
We're not talking about the stress of what to get that person who has everything. CBS 2's Lauren Victory has a consumer warning about a present many of us will receive this year.
The hunt is on for the perfect present and shoppers aren't the only ones on the prowl.
"We got a small uptick in complaints about a certain type of gift card scam," said Lara Sutherlin, the head of Wisconsin's Division of Trade and Consumer Protection.
Sutherlin is constantly warning people about old-school gift card scams where pin numbers are already scratched off. Some cases involve tampering that's not immediately obvious.
"Sometimes they can remove it, scan the number and put the gray film back on or something that looks like the gray film," Sutherlin said.
A third type of scam prompted a public alert. More and more people are reporting scenarios that go something like this:
"You have what you know to be a legitimate gift card," Sutherlin said. "You've used half of it. You're going back in to use the rest of it and it's gone."
Sutherlin said bots are to blame.
"A computer algorithm is scanning a certain store or certain gift cards and determining whether or not there are unused balances on gift cards," she said.
Victory: "So the bot scenario doesn't even require the scammer to go to the store then?"
Sutherlin: "As I understand it, no. They can create a computer program that can overwhelm a store."
Hundreds of millions of card numbers can be run quickly to find a hit.
"If you're carrying around gift cards with large balances on them," Sutherlin said. "They're more susceptible to gift card bots."
Her best advice? Use a gift card as fast as possible.
CBS 2 was able to read some of the consumer complaints investigated in Wisconsin. In more than one case, gift cards were wiped clean by scammers within an hour or two of activation.
Indiana's Attorney General's Office confirmed it too has received complaints about gift card bots in the past few months.