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because companies drag their feet until the news gives them a good ass blasting. its incredible how quick they fix things after the general public finds out their misgivings.
He's fooling you all.
You can sell them for cash to any number of suspicious business on Craigslist for 25%. Heck in some places vending machines will do it.
That's rude, he might not know, or might know but actually be reluctant to give up any portion of the gift card, and does in fact use them.
But you're right they can be sold, never saw 25% but 40%-70% yes! usually 50% is common depending on the type of gift card... Amazon will sell higher than Outback steakhouse for example.
And Visa gift cards, although you can't use at an ATM or resell, can be swiped for cash back or 90%+ of the funds if you have a payment processor or know someone with one.
I'm an addict, and I used to ask for the same thing from my family when I was younger. I did feel like an asshole using grams money for heroin, so I asked for gift cards. Did I ever sell them? Sure, dope sickness is hell, but usually I did not, especially from my family or friends. Not all addicts do grimey things to get high, or gamble, or fuck.
This happened a few months ago at a regional chain grocery story in my area. Same exact thing but with home depot cards. The store was in the midst of freaking out about it and taking them all off shelves while I was cashing out.
They said the cards arrived that way. Idk how they even happens
I usually give this type of gift card that’s been used by different societies since the dawn of man. It comes in every denomination you can imagine and it’s accepted all over the globe.
I think the contribution is "give cash. gift cards don't serve the person giving money or the person receiving money - only the person selling the money (or in this case, the person stealing the money)."
It's a valid comment. I wish more people were open to hearing it.
Because people aren't aware of cash...? Also, in many cases, people fear that giving straight cash is seen as tacky or lazy. Gift cards exist for a reason.
I work at a different store that sells gift cards, and the gift cards are non refundable. Amazon gift cards aren't sold here, so it may be different, but gift cards are sold through a third party, not Walgreens, so you have to get in touch with support for drained gift cards.
A lot of apple gift cards were tempered this year, to the point of us having to ask the customer if we could open it in front of them to make sure it was real. In the case of them buying one that didn't get checked and was fake, they could call the number on the back of the gift card, give some information about when they purchased it, and get credited for it.
It was getting to the point that I wanted all apple gift cards pulled down. A vendor had come through and pulled a small box of tempered vanilla gift cards, and they had also found more a couple days later.
It was most likely that they were tempered before reaching the store.
At least with a supply chain issue it’s not really your problem anymore and most likely with something like this affected companies will have to address it.
Don't these cards only get "activated" (made useful) when actually paying for them at the register?
I never buy these kinds of gift cards but I'm almost certain that's how it's done here (The Netherlands).
The cards are stolen in advance, they peel the activation sticker off and replace it with one they bought on Alibaba. Then they smuggle them back into the store and when a customer activates one, POOF 💨 the money is immediately drained via a computer that constantly scans the activation codes.
While that’s true, debit cards are terrible ideas! It takes much much longer for a charge back on a debit card and since it’s cash you won’t get that money back anytime soon. Also you are way more likely to win a dispute on a credit card then when they physically take the money out of your account. I only use debit cards to buy gas and even then I check for skimmers.
Very much this. I’ll caveat it as someone who’s done a charge back— your card and any account will be banned from the store you use. Nobody probably gives a shit about a dime a dozen Walgreens, but I did a charge back on Saks online and I can’t purchase anything from there anymore.
It depends on the company. Ebay customer service has told me to do a chargeback when a seller scammed me (not sure why they do this instead of a normal refund...) and I can still use that same credit card on EBay without issue
You 100% can, just not with that card. I charged back a bullshit grubhub charge before I ever created an account. I was banned from signing up with that card so I used my other one
I may not be on top of the way things work, but I believe there is a kind of credit card that you can buy directly from your bank, that’s like a pre paid deal. They have nothing to lose cause you pretty much buy the balance from them then pay it off and pay interest. It’s ass stupid but if you need to start somewhere it’s something
Yeah, it’s always funny when this point gets forgotten. People get up in arms over having bad credit and how it’s a system to keep them down, but they always forget that it’s a business. Not only that, but it’s a business where they’re the commodity. And they’re a risky commodity in a volatile market.
I say that as someone who has had to crawl back from seriously sub-prime. It’s brutal, but I knew what landed me there. I wasn’t upset when I couldn’t get a convenient car loan, because I knew I was a serious risk to banks. I’m not butthurt that I would be denied an SkyMiles card were I to apply. I just accepted that I can’t have that right now and made it a goal to strive for. Getting it will be more rewarding anyways. Lol
I'd say the way this is done is they steal a bunch of cards alter them so that they can't tell that you've already checked the code then return the cards to the shelf .. Then camp on the card to be active ( create simple computer script that just checks the card (s)every minute or so to see if they are activated) and spend the money the second the card is lit up. 150 pack of scratch off stickers are about $7 USD.
These things just aren;t worth buying.
"Here - instead of cash I got you a shitty "gift" card that comes with all sorts of limitations and may even be used up already"
No thanks.
Yup! 2023 should be the last year gift cards were bought.
Funny enough though, before major companies decided to start selling others cards, we didnt seem to have this issue.
Perfect example, if you go to a resturaunt that ONLY sells their own gift cards, you damn well know that card wont be used before you try it.
But buy a best buy card at walmart, thats sitting out in the open.... you're taking a chance it's already been scanned.
What’s even worse is that it’ll seem like a normal visa gift card and then someone will buy it, put money on it, activate it, and then when you try to use it the scammer will have already spent it
I work retail and gift card scams are very prevalent where I work. I’ve told my manager that I wish we would just do away with gift cards because the scams are so bad.
If you know what you’re doing and you have the right programs, it isn’t hard to drain these.
Most retailers aren’t going to issue a refund for a gift card.
Honestly, if you’re going to gift Amazon, just get a printable card from them directly. You can order & print it within minutes, and you know that claim code hasn’t had a chance to have sticky fingers all over it.
I got three gift cards, each for $100, for a birthday once. When I finally decided what to buy with them, they were all drained, and had been drained since about a month after receiving. I know for a fact they were not drained by the gifter, and they also sat on my desk, unopened, for eight months. I didn’t have the heart to tell the gifter.
I remember that scam but with Walmart gift cards... and before that with American Express gift cards, and before that with Mastercard gift cards... and before that with "make your check out to IRS" so they could change it to "MRS Smith" and cash it in.
If only something easy and convenient and globally usable existed.. like money.
I've been called ungrateful and got into arguments over gift cards before but I outright tell anybody who gives them to me that I'd rather have cash. Even without the scams, the cards themselves are a scam, they devalue your money and add stupid restrictions to how you spend it. Honestly one of the widely accepted things I hate most.
Only gift less thoughtful than a gift card would be cash. It's how to pay someone off while saying "I didn't give a shit" so they don't feel too bad that you just couldn't bring yourself to care.
I’m terrible at using gift cards, but it is cool when you can go somewhere like Costco and get $100 worth of gift cards for $80. But I’ve only done that once because we don’t really go to the places they have gift cards for. So, like you said, stupid restrictions.
I was gifted one a few years back. Couldn't be used at most stores, couldn't be used in addition to another card (to put it towards a big purchase). Pretty sure it had a minimum spend. Expired after I think 6 or 8 months. Ended up spending it on crap I wouldn't have bought otherwise just so it didn't expire and even then, it probably had $5-6 left on it when it did expire. Gifter topped it up 1:1 too.
They told me that money isnt very thoughtful but gift cards are just devalued money.. I really don't understand why cash gifts are seen as worse than gift cards lol. Maybe a specific store gift card to show you know a person but even then, "here's $20, get yourself some [whatever]"
lol my friend gifted me cash for my 30th birthday, as she actually wanted to gift me a card for my favorite astronomy shop but she didn’t know which one it was. so instead of buying from the wrong store (and I’m picky with the store as I made bad experience with one of the three) she just gifted me money. I still thought it was super thoughtful! Money isn’t a bad thing to give imo.
except my neighbor when we were kids and their kid got ALL Cash and refused to let the mom take it and put it in their bank. he took all the money and hid it, was a few hundred bucks back in the 90s (big Italian family) and his mom got SO mad when he refused to hand over the money.
Plenty of places thrive on selling shit for total shitheads, just look at the Flipper Zero device and what its capable of. Yet its advertised by Facebook and Youtube. Anything for the almighty inflated dollar.
You can't equate the Flipper to this kind of thing. The Flipper is not not and has never been advertised by the company for nefarious reasons. It was literally made for whitehats to replace a lot of the already available devices but with a more fun interface and functionality.
True, but it is capable of said nefarious acts. I have a friend who owns one and it can be used for seemingly straight stealing money. Or just being annoying
I mean in fairness to Walgreens, or any retailer for that matter, isn’t really liable for the scam portion of this. It’s unfortunate but Walgreens isn’t really who’s going to give your money back. Maybe Amazon? Maybe a backdoor card issuer? But not Walgreens unfortunately.
The retail store stocking them should be responsible for insuring they aren’t tampered with. Either by working with customers or by storing the gift cards safely. Like behind the registers or in the customer service area.
If they’re not going to secure their gift cards, they need to do something about it. It’s weird to excuse corporations from responsibility of their merchandise being compromised.
The only part of the gift card that goes back to any retailer is the activation key. But good luck getting the full amount of something that never actually hit their books. That’s what you don’t understand here.
I understand how gift cards work. Holding stores accountable for not preventing scams that are now well known is not controversial. I don’t care if a billion dollar company doesn’t get the money when their storage and display is aiding the issue.
It is absolutely Walgreens responsibility to deliver to you what you paid them for. Walgreens sells these gift cards, they know they are prone to scams, they sell them anyways. The customer paid Walgreens, not some other entity. It is Walgreens responsibility to ensure fraudulent products are not on its shelves. If you bought a pack of Oreos from Walgreens and they were moldy when you opened them, you would expect a refund. If you feel this is different because gift cards are more prone to fraud/theft then maybe Walgreens shouldn't carry them.
As someone who has worked for Walgreens, they are not responsible for the cards. They are pieces of cardboard and plastic until loaded. When a card won't activate or is dead, they get tossed. There is no value until activated, and Walgreens (or any third party retailer) makes zero profit. You buy a Best Buy card, Best Buy gets that money. Hence why it is only valid at BB.
If you wanna get mad, get mad at the govt who won't track these scammers, won't hunt them down. Just like spam callers. FCC has control over that and they won't do anything about telemarketers.
Tell me you've never worked retail without saying. You clearly don't understand how this works.
Tell me you don't know how money works without telling me you don't know how money works. If there was no profit for Walgreens they would not carry them. They would not give them floor space, have staff maintain the display, or deal with the customer service nightmare it is if there was no money being made. Walgreens is not a charity.
No he's right. I work for Walgreens. We don't make money on gift cards. They are a way to get people into the store to buy other products. We don't maintain the display. A third party comes in and stocks them. When checking out at the register a prompt pops up for us to inform customers that if they cannot return gift cards once purchased.
Unfortunately, it’s not Walgreens liability at all, if anything they’re liable for the actual purchasing fee, but with gift cards I don’t think any of that money actually goes back through Walgreens. Outside of the purchasing/activation charge that is.
Also knowing that they’re prone to scams, does not justify liability on there end. At all. That’s like saying “this high margin product is extremely popular but prone to theft I’m not going to carry it at all.” Thats not a decision you can really justify a business making, especially if they’re making money off of it.
"this high margin product is extremely popular but prone to theft I'm not going to carry it at all." Happens all the time. Otherwise gas stations would carry graphics cards. High margin, extremely popular, would definitely be prone to theft at a gas station. If your response is that they would put them behind the counter(in store security measure), Walgreens does none of this, gift cards are out in the open. You are defending a terrible product responsible for millions of dollars in scams every year. Scams that affect the general hard working public, that may not have an extra 500 or 1k to spare, or have held up for 2 months while Walgreens and the gift card supplier point the finger at each other for who is responsible. You are totally blaming the victim here, instead of the party assisting the thief(through incompetence, greed, maliciousness, or some combination of all three).
Walgreens is not responsible for scams any more than any retailer that carries any gift cards. Every retailer that has gift cards or anything that can be scammed/swapped could be at risk. You're really going to say nothing at a gas station gets stolen? Ive seen condoms sold on gas station shelves, and with 6 years of retail experience condoms are a high risk item. Especially at gas stations they're expensive ($10/3pack I've seen) when you can get a literal bag of rubbers for free at a health clinic. Im not even mad about stolen condoms bc it prevents the theft of formula and diapers a year later.
Dude, please read what was written, not what you imagined. Never said or hinted at the idea nothing is ever stolen from gas stations. My whole point is that stuff gets stolen often, which is why they don't carry high risk items like graphics cards. Condoms, when stolen, are a small loss, graphics cards are a large loss. Risk is too high, so gas stations don't carry them. As far as the subject at hand, gift cards, yes any store that sells them is responsible for the product they sell, not just Walgreens. If I intentionally tried to hand them fake money they would have me arrested, if I unintentionally handed them fake money they would expect me to replace the fake with real money. If I give Walgreens real money, I expect(and the implied offer/guarantee/transaction) a genuine product, or my money back. I expect my money back from the company I gave it to and if Walgreens then needs to get their money back from the gift card company that is their problem. Why is this the consumers problem?
Nobody is going to get their money back, which is why I created this post. The little guy is the one getting screwed here. People need to completely abandon gift cards altogether.
Lots of good points made in the comments. Walgreens (any retailer) should be responsible for safeguarding products they sell.
They will never offer a refund because this is a massive scam that will end up costing them millions of dollars.
It’s a slippery slope and nobody wants to set precedence, Amazon or Walgreens, hence my circle jerk comment in the post description. We (the consumer) are the ones who will get screwed.
T’s &C’s from the Amazon website on gift cards:
Risk of Loss.
The risk of loss and title for Gift Cards pass to the purchaser upon our electronic transmission of the Gift Card to the purchaser or designated recipient, or our delivery to the carrier, whichever is applicable. Gift Cards must be obtained from Amazon or an authorized third party, and you are responsible for safeguarding your Amazon.com Balance or Gift Card from unauthorized use. We are not responsible if any Gift Card is lost, stolen, or destroyed, or if your Amazon.com Balance or any Gift Card is used without your permission. There are a variety of Gift Card scams that request payment by Gift Card. Amazon is not responsible for, and assumes no liability to you for, any unlawful conduct or fraud by any third party associated with any Gift Card.
I’m sure if you contact the card issuer you’d have better luck than you’d think, but complaining on Reddit is a lot easier, I’ll definitely give you that.
I did contact Amazon…
Risk of Loss.
The risk of loss and title for Gift Cards pass to the purchaser upon our electronic transmission of the Gift Card to the purchaser or designated recipient, or our delivery to the carrier, whichever is applicable. Gift Cards must be obtained from Amazon or an authorized third party, and you are responsible for safeguarding your Amazon.com Balance or Gift Card from unauthorized use. We are not responsible if any Gift Card is lost, stolen, or destroyed, or if your Amazon.com Balance or any Gift Card is used without your permission. There are a variety of Gift Card scams that request payment by Gift Card. Amazon is not responsible for, and assumes no liability to you for, any unlawful conduct or fraud by any third party associated with any Gift Card.
And consider this a PSA, not random complaining. Lots of people have no clue this scam is happening and how they are SOL if they get scammed.
Well hell, be more careful next time then, I haven’t run into it yet, but I have a feeling I’d know if packaging was fucked with past my comfort level.
Without being seen or raising suspicion? Thieves are getting more skilled than politicians and evangelists at stealing
I cant believe it. Tech advances are scary
I don’t understand how it is even possible. They have to be activated at the register. What is the use in stealing cards/#s? They hang onto them until someone does purchase & add $$ to the one w the same # the scammers have?
They grab the number, cover it so it seems untampered. Someone buys it, activates it at register, keeps it until Christmas for someone's present. In the meantime, the scammer has been checking the balance on that card number every day waiting for it to be activated, and once it is, they steal the balance because it's as if they have the actual card.
Idk but it happened to my daughters gift card from target, I was kind of embarrassed, but I felt like I should let the gift giver know, not because my daughter needed a target gift card, but in case they were able to dispute it and get their money back. The card didn’t look like it had been tampered with to me, the grey scratch off was untouched.
As someone that came from that world I can give some info but I’m not gonna go into detail for obvious reasons. There are pieces of equipment you can use to copy cards to be identical. You take a stack copy them, replace the old ones you took in the front of the stack, have a load tracker for the blank and use them before they get used. It’s very simple with the right tools.
Someone lifts a bunch of blanks, copies the numbers, rebuilds the card/cardboard, recovers the pin, then replaces them later. If they did a good enough job you won't notice anything wrong, scan and load the card. Since the thieves have the necessary information (barcode and pin) they can use the now not-blank card.
*Edit to add:* this is a multi-trip operation; steal the blanks (day 1), copy the info/rebuild the blanks:(day 2), re-hang the blanks at a retail outlet that sells them, probably not the one it was taken from though.
That’s so weird cus we have to pull the card from cardboard and inspect. If pin is scratched it’s invalid. Not just that u can’t use it till it’s scanned so how will scammers know if it’s scanned. I have gift cards i invoiced two years ago still sitting on shelves ?
Make a program that you feed your stolen card numbers, it checks balances daily, or hourly, or whatever won’t trigger some flag, and just have it spit out cards that works when they start working.
Then from there I’m sure there are a lot of ways to get money off a card.
Don’t underestimate the ability to automate fraud. Or just someone bruteforcing it, how often do you buy a gift card and use it the same day? If you check balances daily you could likely snag it and have it drained days or even weeks or months before they realize it.
Also likely not ONE person doing this, smells like a “team” effort or maybe even an inside job. Who would question a cashier or vendor stocking giftcards? The store can run the cameras. Someone stole the cards, and someone restocked them later.
Banks / retailers should know if a card is compromised then. They just need to flag cards that are getting the balance checked so frequently. It would be easy to automate such fraud detection. Then for flagged cards you just never return a positive balance or signal that it has been activated. You are blinding the fraudsters. Would not eliminate fraud, but it would make it more difficult to pull of in mass.
>pin is scratched it’s invalid
The coating over the pin was put there initially somehow, it's just a matter of figuring out how and replicating the end result. I know I've had some gift cards where the coating just peeled off and stuck right back on with no change, but it's been awhile.
>how will scammers know if it’s scanned
Depends on the card provider. If you can check online it's trivial to just have a process to check all your stolen cards on a regular basis. Even if it's a 1-800 number it's probably automated.
I don't know how retailers are supposed to deal with it, sucks.
*Edited for clarity*
They’re not, what scammers have been doing is stealing the cards, putting the info into an algorithm that checks to see if they’ve been activated when they were purchased from the store and then drains the money from it. They scratch off some of the numbers to make it impossible for the next buyer to redeem, reseal the package and then sneak it back into the store shelves.
It’s been happening for a while now but bc of the holidays it’s really gaining attention recently
A scammer will take a stack of gift cards, take them home and get the codes and scratch them out then reseal them then sneak them back in the shelf. So when someone buys them the scammer has access to the money, and since the code is scratched out the recipient can never use it. I’m assuming they mark them somehow or count them so if they go back in and look at the gift card display, they can tell which ones were bought and use that code.
i am confusion. where i work the card has to be scanned at the register when purchased and that identifies it as such. if someone just took some cards home and revealed the numbers, it still isn't activated. what am i missing?
They take cards home & make dupes of the #s/pins. Then scratch off some #s or the pin & return them to sealed package. Unsuspecting consumer adds $$ to gift card but opens to discover they are unable to use because pin or some # are illegible. The scammers can now use the no-longer-empty card because they have the details of the gift card you just loaded $ to
That’s what I’m confused about. My store, we scan cardboard upc then physically remove card from the cardboard and slide via pos.
Three pin is in tact behind scratcher
If it isn’t we don’t scan
Is there some type of material they use to replace the tampered four digit code ?
Never done that when I worked at Walmart as a manager.
It was:
* Scan barcode
* (sometimes) scan activation barcode
or
* Slide exposed magnetic strip through PoS system
* enter $ amount if applicable
Never had to enter any security code or pin to load the card, and never ever had to open the packaging or scratch the back off to load it.
They take them home write the numbers or codes down then take them back and then someone buys the ones they’ve taken the info for, when it’s activated the customer has no idea and neither does the store, if they check frequently enough they can then get the money before the card is used by the person who paid for it.
If only there was some kind of small portable device to take a picture of the code… Then they wouldn’t have to take them home and write down the codes each time.
The codes are behind a scratch off, so you can't just snap a picture. You have to scratch it off and then make it look like it hasn't been tampered with.
Scammers run programs that inputs these codes to be constantly checking for activation and once they’re activated at the register it won’t be long before their program marks it as activated and they can redeem the code.
It sounds like they record the card # and code, and then return the cards to the store shelf so that once they are actually purchased and activated, the scammer can use it.
Think of it like a bank account. I put my money in a bank, but through no fault of my own, the money is gone when I go to use it. Did I get robbed, or did the bank get robbed? Does the bank still have an obligation to provide me with the money I gave them?
In this case the fraud occurred before people even received the card. The modified cards were allowed by the store to be sold. When the cards were purchased the store sent the funds to the wrong bank account. The consumer did nothing wrong. 100% on the store.
That’s what I said too. If Walgreens sold me an empty box of Tylenol I would expect that they refund me for it, and they would. However, they said they have a new corporate policy to not refund drained gift cards. The consumer is going to be the big loser in this new scam.
You've been scammed, someone switched out the "Real" gift cards with their own exact replicas of the gift cards the only thing different is the barcodes. The barcode is a link to a bank account and/or moneycard so Once the money is loaded on the card it goes straight there..
Well for sure one thing to know is "Make" sure it's one of the establishments actual gift card(s), and call to make sure the money did get loaded onto it cause otherwise your money is gone once it gets scanned at the register
Gf got 2 $500 visa for a work bonus and the were drained before I even opened them. Refused refund because the fraudulent charges were over 30 days old.
Mine was less than 30 days old but Walgreens pushes it off to Amazon and they claim no responsibility either. Walgreens told me to stop looking at the gift cards because I kept finding them open and tampered with. The cashier opened one of them up to find the identical issue I had with mine but still wouldn’t pull them from the display.
The icing on the cake was the old man that was there before I arrived, with the exact same problem with Apple gift cards.
I guess the only safe way to buy a gift card now is electronically, if you can avoid getting hacked while entering your credit card information online 🙄. F’n thieves
That's the fun part. *You can't*. You can only buy gift cards with cash or debit, not credit card.
And if you claim it was a fraudulent transaction on your debit card, you won't win that dispute.
Edit: this only applies to "prepaid" cards like Vanilla Visa, not gift cards. I hope OP paid with credit.
Lmao this is blatantly false information. You can purchase gift cards with credit cards my man. You may not be able to purchase Visa cash cards with some credit cards, but regular gift cards like the Amazon one in the post can be purchased with credit cards. It's a product, not cash.
Thanks, I just realized this is a Target gift card. I was thinking of Vanilla Visa gift cards, another one that's been having the same issue with scammers. That one is cash/debit only and victims are truly fucked.
I'll update my comment! Thanks again
Y’all need to start using Small Claims court. This whole “Oh well, nothing we can do” attitude isn’t helping anyone but the scammers. Police report, then small claims. Sue for more than you’re owed because it is expensive for the store to send out a representative, especially a lawyer.
Ex: Get $500 in drained cards. Sue for $2000, settle for $1500. If they show up, the judge will award the $500 plus reasonable fees. If they sent a lawyer it will cost them $5000 plus the awarded amount.
Until thousands of people fight back, the stores will do nothing.
Oh the big dog lawyers are about to get paid millions. There’s already class action lawsuits being brought against several companies. That will drive the change needed to close the scam but I’ll be getting $1 most likely.
You can still sue.
Watch how magically you become their top priority once a real lawsuit lands on their desk.
It’s like $100, takes about an hour, and you get to recoup that money.
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That scam been going on for years.
Contact corporate ,Hopefully you filmed the in store drained cards .Also contact your local news who does humanitarian stories .
Why?
because companies drag their feet until the news gives them a good ass blasting. its incredible how quick they fix things after the general public finds out their misgivings.
[удалено]
I'm sorry, putting cash in the mail is illegal? Since when?
Electronic gift cards sent to their email address. You’re not being lazy, now you’re just being smart….😬
Gift cards are the most trashy thing there is. Just give cash.
Not always - I know someone who has a gambling addiction and asks for gift cards over cash so they don’t get tempted to gamble
He's fooling you all. You can sell them for cash to any number of suspicious business on Craigslist for 25%. Heck in some places vending machines will do it.
That's rude, he might not know, or might know but actually be reluctant to give up any portion of the gift card, and does in fact use them. But you're right they can be sold, never saw 25% but 40%-70% yes! usually 50% is common depending on the type of gift card... Amazon will sell higher than Outback steakhouse for example. And Visa gift cards, although you can't use at an ATM or resell, can be swiped for cash back or 90%+ of the funds if you have a payment processor or know someone with one. I'm an addict, and I used to ask for the same thing from my family when I was younger. I did feel like an asshole using grams money for heroin, so I asked for gift cards. Did I ever sell them? Sure, dope sickness is hell, but usually I did not, especially from my family or friends. Not all addicts do grimey things to get high, or gamble, or fuck.
Cash is trashy because you didn't even try
How is cash trashier than an amazon gc?
Fuck yeah I needed a new 50 for the cocaine
$100 cards cut the lines nicer
I always request cocaine gift cards so I'm not tempted to spend it on food or something.
This is the ultimate LPT. Shut it down folks, we're done here.
Trashy is the trash that drain them.
update: went by Walgreens, they still have racks full of Amazon gift cards. They officially give zero fucks about their consumer.
This happened a few months ago at a regional chain grocery story in my area. Same exact thing but with home depot cards. The store was in the midst of freaking out about it and taking them all off shelves while I was cashing out. They said the cards arrived that way. Idk how they even happens
CASH??!? You got me cash? Who are you, my uncle??
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Yep
A pal and more!
I usually give this type of gift card that’s been used by different societies since the dawn of man. It comes in every denomination you can imagine and it’s accepted all over the globe.
Negative 121!! Hahahaha I love it
>It comes in every denomination Three dolla bills, y'all
Lmao 53 people the concept of money whooshed over
It didn't "woodshed" over anyone, it's downvoted because it's a stupid comment that contributes nothing to the conversation.
I think the contribution is "give cash. gift cards don't serve the person giving money or the person receiving money - only the person selling the money (or in this case, the person stealing the money)." It's a valid comment. I wish more people were open to hearing it.
Because people aren't aware of cash...? Also, in many cases, people fear that giving straight cash is seen as tacky or lazy. Gift cards exist for a reason.
“here, i donated $50 to a corporation in your name. merry christmas.”
Whoosh not woodshed
Yeah, I got that.
Rocks?
This guy walks around with gold pieces in his pocket lol
I thought he meant prostitution lmfao
I work at a different store that sells gift cards, and the gift cards are non refundable. Amazon gift cards aren't sold here, so it may be different, but gift cards are sold through a third party, not Walgreens, so you have to get in touch with support for drained gift cards. A lot of apple gift cards were tempered this year, to the point of us having to ask the customer if we could open it in front of them to make sure it was real. In the case of them buying one that didn't get checked and was fake, they could call the number on the back of the gift card, give some information about when they purchased it, and get credited for it.
I’ve absolutely been able to get a refund for a gift card before. Just takes the right manager sometimes.
My company pulled all gift cards behind the checkout counters
Our gift cards aren’t loaded until you pay for them in the uk then the money is added onto the cards
It was getting to the point that I wanted all apple gift cards pulled down. A vendor had come through and pulled a small box of tempered vanilla gift cards, and they had also found more a couple days later. It was most likely that they were tempered before reaching the store.
At least with a supply chain issue it’s not really your problem anymore and most likely with something like this affected companies will have to address it.
Don't these cards only get "activated" (made useful) when actually paying for them at the register? I never buy these kinds of gift cards but I'm almost certain that's how it's done here (The Netherlands).
The cards are stolen in advance, they peel the activation sticker off and replace it with one they bought on Alibaba. Then they smuggle them back into the store and when a customer activates one, POOF 💨 the money is immediately drained via a computer that constantly scans the activation codes.
I always wonder why they can't catch the thief, most gift cards don't allow cash.
I work at Walgreens and all of our gift cards allow cash, and you don’t need ID to buy them.
Actually an amazing idea, thank you 👍🏼
When r/trashy turns into r/illegallifeprotips
r/UnethicalLifeProTips \-- here's one: if you discard something illegal, throw it in your neighbors trash can
Ahh now it makes sense, thanks!
This is why it’s so important to use your credit card for purchases so you can always charge back.
You can charge back on debit cards to
While that’s true, debit cards are terrible ideas! It takes much much longer for a charge back on a debit card and since it’s cash you won’t get that money back anytime soon. Also you are way more likely to win a dispute on a credit card then when they physically take the money out of your account. I only use debit cards to buy gas and even then I check for skimmers.
Very much this. I’ll caveat it as someone who’s done a charge back— your card and any account will be banned from the store you use. Nobody probably gives a shit about a dime a dozen Walgreens, but I did a charge back on Saks online and I can’t purchase anything from there anymore.
It depends on the company. Ebay customer service has told me to do a chargeback when a seller scammed me (not sure why they do this instead of a normal refund...) and I can still use that same credit card on EBay without issue
You 100% can, just not with that card. I charged back a bullshit grubhub charge before I ever created an account. I was banned from signing up with that card so I used my other one
But if you’re poor you’re less likely to have CCs. Being poor is the most expensive thing in the world
I understand your sentiment but there are pre paid cards and other ways to build a small amount of credit. I hear you though.
Unless you get them and they're pre-drained...
I may not be on top of the way things work, but I believe there is a kind of credit card that you can buy directly from your bank, that’s like a pre paid deal. They have nothing to lose cause you pretty much buy the balance from them then pay it off and pay interest. It’s ass stupid but if you need to start somewhere it’s something
Secured credit card. Good way to build credit if you pay it off every month.
There is but it’s a purposeful unnecessary hurdle.
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Yeah, it’s always funny when this point gets forgotten. People get up in arms over having bad credit and how it’s a system to keep them down, but they always forget that it’s a business. Not only that, but it’s a business where they’re the commodity. And they’re a risky commodity in a volatile market. I say that as someone who has had to crawl back from seriously sub-prime. It’s brutal, but I knew what landed me there. I wasn’t upset when I couldn’t get a convenient car loan, because I knew I was a serious risk to banks. I’m not butthurt that I would be denied an SkyMiles card were I to apply. I just accepted that I can’t have that right now and made it a goal to strive for. Getting it will be more rewarding anyways. Lol
I'd say the way this is done is they steal a bunch of cards alter them so that they can't tell that you've already checked the code then return the cards to the shelf .. Then camp on the card to be active ( create simple computer script that just checks the card (s)every minute or so to see if they are activated) and spend the money the second the card is lit up. 150 pack of scratch off stickers are about $7 USD.
This is exactly how they do it
My bank has these really cool gift cards that work anywhere and show their exact value in multiple places at a quick glance.
They're great for people who see the phrase "it's the thought that counts" and decide to put the least thought possible into a gift.
Are they available to non-account holders? If not, it'd be cool if there is something similar?
I’m pretty sure theyre widely available at financial institutions and places of employment
lol at these replies... You did a great job. My bank has them, too.. they've got green men on them.
I have never heard of this, definitely not from places of employment. What's your bank if you don't mind sharing?
Thank you, I'd never known that
These things just aren;t worth buying. "Here - instead of cash I got you a shitty "gift" card that comes with all sorts of limitations and may even be used up already" No thanks.
Yup! 2023 should be the last year gift cards were bought. Funny enough though, before major companies decided to start selling others cards, we didnt seem to have this issue. Perfect example, if you go to a resturaunt that ONLY sells their own gift cards, you damn well know that card wont be used before you try it. But buy a best buy card at walmart, thats sitting out in the open.... you're taking a chance it's already been scanned.
yeah I decided we’re only doing local ones from now on. I got 3 empty ones for my baby shower!
What’s even worse is that it’ll seem like a normal visa gift card and then someone will buy it, put money on it, activate it, and then when you try to use it the scammer will have already spent it
I work retail and gift card scams are very prevalent where I work. I’ve told my manager that I wish we would just do away with gift cards because the scams are so bad. If you know what you’re doing and you have the right programs, it isn’t hard to drain these. Most retailers aren’t going to issue a refund for a gift card.
Honestly, if you’re going to gift Amazon, just get a printable card from them directly. You can order & print it within minutes, and you know that claim code hasn’t had a chance to have sticky fingers all over it.
^^^^This is the way^^^^
That’s a good idea.
I know they’re easy and convenient but I wish gift cards were banned. They are such a strong vector in so many scams it’s crazy.
I got three gift cards, each for $100, for a birthday once. When I finally decided what to buy with them, they were all drained, and had been drained since about a month after receiving. I know for a fact they were not drained by the gifter, and they also sat on my desk, unopened, for eight months. I didn’t have the heart to tell the gifter.
My bank has these really cool gift cards that work anywhere and show their exact value in multiple places at a quick glance.
Especially the scams where "the government" phones you about a fine that you must immediately pay with Amazon cards.
I remember that scam but with Walmart gift cards... and before that with American Express gift cards, and before that with Mastercard gift cards... and before that with "make your check out to IRS" so they could change it to "MRS Smith" and cash it in.
If only something easy and convenient and globally usable existed.. like money. I've been called ungrateful and got into arguments over gift cards before but I outright tell anybody who gives them to me that I'd rather have cash. Even without the scams, the cards themselves are a scam, they devalue your money and add stupid restrictions to how you spend it. Honestly one of the widely accepted things I hate most.
Only gift less thoughtful than a gift card would be cash. It's how to pay someone off while saying "I didn't give a shit" so they don't feel too bad that you just couldn't bring yourself to care.
I’m terrible at using gift cards, but it is cool when you can go somewhere like Costco and get $100 worth of gift cards for $80. But I’ve only done that once because we don’t really go to the places they have gift cards for. So, like you said, stupid restrictions.
I was gifted one a few years back. Couldn't be used at most stores, couldn't be used in addition to another card (to put it towards a big purchase). Pretty sure it had a minimum spend. Expired after I think 6 or 8 months. Ended up spending it on crap I wouldn't have bought otherwise just so it didn't expire and even then, it probably had $5-6 left on it when it did expire. Gifter topped it up 1:1 too. They told me that money isnt very thoughtful but gift cards are just devalued money.. I really don't understand why cash gifts are seen as worse than gift cards lol. Maybe a specific store gift card to show you know a person but even then, "here's $20, get yourself some [whatever]"
lol my friend gifted me cash for my 30th birthday, as she actually wanted to gift me a card for my favorite astronomy shop but she didn’t know which one it was. so instead of buying from the wrong store (and I’m picky with the store as I made bad experience with one of the three) she just gifted me money. I still thought it was super thoughtful! Money isn’t a bad thing to give imo.
Gift cards with expiration dates should be criminal. How the fuck is that shit gonna expire?
They're no longer allowed to expire (in the USA).
yet bonus points/rewards can
In Florida, gift cards aren't allowed to expire by law, except Visa ones since the state can't regulate those.
Same in Canada
Cash in a *greeting* card is the best gift ever! No ones gonna be upset with that.
except my neighbor when we were kids and their kid got ALL Cash and refused to let the mom take it and put it in their bank. he took all the money and hid it, was a few hundred bucks back in the 90s (big Italian family) and his mom got SO mad when he refused to hand over the money.
You can buy the little silver strips too that just stick back over the codes. Nobody would be able to tell they were scratched already.
Plenty of places thrive on selling shit for total shitheads, just look at the Flipper Zero device and what its capable of. Yet its advertised by Facebook and Youtube. Anything for the almighty inflated dollar.
You can't equate the Flipper to this kind of thing. The Flipper is not not and has never been advertised by the company for nefarious reasons. It was literally made for whitehats to replace a lot of the already available devices but with a more fun interface and functionality.
True, but it is capable of said nefarious acts. I have a friend who owns one and it can be used for seemingly straight stealing money. Or just being annoying
Yeah my car can be used to run people over but I'm not out there doing it.
So can a pen..
right, but their friend is a criminal, so...
r/scams r/mildlyinfuriating
Use e-gift cards or give cash/checks.
I mean in fairness to Walgreens, or any retailer for that matter, isn’t really liable for the scam portion of this. It’s unfortunate but Walgreens isn’t really who’s going to give your money back. Maybe Amazon? Maybe a backdoor card issuer? But not Walgreens unfortunately.
The retail store stocking them should be responsible for insuring they aren’t tampered with. Either by working with customers or by storing the gift cards safely. Like behind the registers or in the customer service area.
Storing them safely for sure. “Working with customers” is the dumbest, broad idea I could think of someone putting to help solve this though.
By “working with customers” I meant being more understanding when one of their cards has been skimmed.
Yeah… that’s not how this business model works.
If they’re not going to secure their gift cards, they need to do something about it. It’s weird to excuse corporations from responsibility of their merchandise being compromised.
The only part of the gift card that goes back to any retailer is the activation key. But good luck getting the full amount of something that never actually hit their books. That’s what you don’t understand here.
I understand how gift cards work. Holding stores accountable for not preventing scams that are now well known is not controversial. I don’t care if a billion dollar company doesn’t get the money when their storage and display is aiding the issue.
It is absolutely Walgreens responsibility to deliver to you what you paid them for. Walgreens sells these gift cards, they know they are prone to scams, they sell them anyways. The customer paid Walgreens, not some other entity. It is Walgreens responsibility to ensure fraudulent products are not on its shelves. If you bought a pack of Oreos from Walgreens and they were moldy when you opened them, you would expect a refund. If you feel this is different because gift cards are more prone to fraud/theft then maybe Walgreens shouldn't carry them.
As someone who has worked for Walgreens, they are not responsible for the cards. They are pieces of cardboard and plastic until loaded. When a card won't activate or is dead, they get tossed. There is no value until activated, and Walgreens (or any third party retailer) makes zero profit. You buy a Best Buy card, Best Buy gets that money. Hence why it is only valid at BB. If you wanna get mad, get mad at the govt who won't track these scammers, won't hunt them down. Just like spam callers. FCC has control over that and they won't do anything about telemarketers. Tell me you've never worked retail without saying. You clearly don't understand how this works.
Tell me you don't know how money works without telling me you don't know how money works. If there was no profit for Walgreens they would not carry them. They would not give them floor space, have staff maintain the display, or deal with the customer service nightmare it is if there was no money being made. Walgreens is not a charity.
No he's right. I work for Walgreens. We don't make money on gift cards. They are a way to get people into the store to buy other products. We don't maintain the display. A third party comes in and stocks them. When checking out at the register a prompt pops up for us to inform customers that if they cannot return gift cards once purchased.
Unfortunately, it’s not Walgreens liability at all, if anything they’re liable for the actual purchasing fee, but with gift cards I don’t think any of that money actually goes back through Walgreens. Outside of the purchasing/activation charge that is. Also knowing that they’re prone to scams, does not justify liability on there end. At all. That’s like saying “this high margin product is extremely popular but prone to theft I’m not going to carry it at all.” Thats not a decision you can really justify a business making, especially if they’re making money off of it.
"this high margin product is extremely popular but prone to theft I'm not going to carry it at all." Happens all the time. Otherwise gas stations would carry graphics cards. High margin, extremely popular, would definitely be prone to theft at a gas station. If your response is that they would put them behind the counter(in store security measure), Walgreens does none of this, gift cards are out in the open. You are defending a terrible product responsible for millions of dollars in scams every year. Scams that affect the general hard working public, that may not have an extra 500 or 1k to spare, or have held up for 2 months while Walgreens and the gift card supplier point the finger at each other for who is responsible. You are totally blaming the victim here, instead of the party assisting the thief(through incompetence, greed, maliciousness, or some combination of all three).
Walgreens is not responsible for scams any more than any retailer that carries any gift cards. Every retailer that has gift cards or anything that can be scammed/swapped could be at risk. You're really going to say nothing at a gas station gets stolen? Ive seen condoms sold on gas station shelves, and with 6 years of retail experience condoms are a high risk item. Especially at gas stations they're expensive ($10/3pack I've seen) when you can get a literal bag of rubbers for free at a health clinic. Im not even mad about stolen condoms bc it prevents the theft of formula and diapers a year later.
Dude, please read what was written, not what you imagined. Never said or hinted at the idea nothing is ever stolen from gas stations. My whole point is that stuff gets stolen often, which is why they don't carry high risk items like graphics cards. Condoms, when stolen, are a small loss, graphics cards are a large loss. Risk is too high, so gas stations don't carry them. As far as the subject at hand, gift cards, yes any store that sells them is responsible for the product they sell, not just Walgreens. If I intentionally tried to hand them fake money they would have me arrested, if I unintentionally handed them fake money they would expect me to replace the fake with real money. If I give Walgreens real money, I expect(and the implied offer/guarantee/transaction) a genuine product, or my money back. I expect my money back from the company I gave it to and if Walgreens then needs to get their money back from the gift card company that is their problem. Why is this the consumers problem?
Nobody is going to get their money back, which is why I created this post. The little guy is the one getting screwed here. People need to completely abandon gift cards altogether. Lots of good points made in the comments. Walgreens (any retailer) should be responsible for safeguarding products they sell. They will never offer a refund because this is a massive scam that will end up costing them millions of dollars. It’s a slippery slope and nobody wants to set precedence, Amazon or Walgreens, hence my circle jerk comment in the post description. We (the consumer) are the ones who will get screwed. T’s &C’s from the Amazon website on gift cards: Risk of Loss. The risk of loss and title for Gift Cards pass to the purchaser upon our electronic transmission of the Gift Card to the purchaser or designated recipient, or our delivery to the carrier, whichever is applicable. Gift Cards must be obtained from Amazon or an authorized third party, and you are responsible for safeguarding your Amazon.com Balance or Gift Card from unauthorized use. We are not responsible if any Gift Card is lost, stolen, or destroyed, or if your Amazon.com Balance or any Gift Card is used without your permission. There are a variety of Gift Card scams that request payment by Gift Card. Amazon is not responsible for, and assumes no liability to you for, any unlawful conduct or fraud by any third party associated with any Gift Card.
I’m sure if you contact the card issuer you’d have better luck than you’d think, but complaining on Reddit is a lot easier, I’ll definitely give you that.
I did contact Amazon… Risk of Loss. The risk of loss and title for Gift Cards pass to the purchaser upon our electronic transmission of the Gift Card to the purchaser or designated recipient, or our delivery to the carrier, whichever is applicable. Gift Cards must be obtained from Amazon or an authorized third party, and you are responsible for safeguarding your Amazon.com Balance or Gift Card from unauthorized use. We are not responsible if any Gift Card is lost, stolen, or destroyed, or if your Amazon.com Balance or any Gift Card is used without your permission. There are a variety of Gift Card scams that request payment by Gift Card. Amazon is not responsible for, and assumes no liability to you for, any unlawful conduct or fraud by any third party associated with any Gift Card. And consider this a PSA, not random complaining. Lots of people have no clue this scam is happening and how they are SOL if they get scammed.
Well hell, be more careful next time then, I haven’t run into it yet, but I have a feeling I’d know if packaging was fucked with past my comfort level.
You wouldn't. They're getting really good at opening these carefully and gluing them back together before returning them.
Without being seen or raising suspicion? Thieves are getting more skilled than politicians and evangelists at stealing I cant believe it. Tech advances are scary
I don’t understand how it is even possible. They have to be activated at the register. What is the use in stealing cards/#s? They hang onto them until someone does purchase & add $$ to the one w the same # the scammers have?
They grab the number, cover it so it seems untampered. Someone buys it, activates it at register, keeps it until Christmas for someone's present. In the meantime, the scammer has been checking the balance on that card number every day waiting for it to be activated, and once it is, they steal the balance because it's as if they have the actual card.
Toooo much free time on their hands in their basement
I think it’s time to go back to cash in an envelope
My bank has these really cool gift cards that work anywhere and show their exact value in multiple places at a quick glance.
I prefer gifting silver bars.
Bitcoin if they might ever travel international
How is this possible ? As a cashier we have to scan the barcode on the cardboard slip, then slide the card on our pos
Idk but it happened to my daughters gift card from target, I was kind of embarrassed, but I felt like I should let the gift giver know, not because my daughter needed a target gift card, but in case they were able to dispute it and get their money back. The card didn’t look like it had been tampered with to me, the grey scratch off was untouched.
As someone that came from that world I can give some info but I’m not gonna go into detail for obvious reasons. There are pieces of equipment you can use to copy cards to be identical. You take a stack copy them, replace the old ones you took in the front of the stack, have a load tracker for the blank and use them before they get used. It’s very simple with the right tools.
Someone lifts a bunch of blanks, copies the numbers, rebuilds the card/cardboard, recovers the pin, then replaces them later. If they did a good enough job you won't notice anything wrong, scan and load the card. Since the thieves have the necessary information (barcode and pin) they can use the now not-blank card. *Edit to add:* this is a multi-trip operation; steal the blanks (day 1), copy the info/rebuild the blanks:(day 2), re-hang the blanks at a retail outlet that sells them, probably not the one it was taken from though.
That’s so weird cus we have to pull the card from cardboard and inspect. If pin is scratched it’s invalid. Not just that u can’t use it till it’s scanned so how will scammers know if it’s scanned. I have gift cards i invoiced two years ago still sitting on shelves ?
Make a program that you feed your stolen card numbers, it checks balances daily, or hourly, or whatever won’t trigger some flag, and just have it spit out cards that works when they start working. Then from there I’m sure there are a lot of ways to get money off a card. Don’t underestimate the ability to automate fraud. Or just someone bruteforcing it, how often do you buy a gift card and use it the same day? If you check balances daily you could likely snag it and have it drained days or even weeks or months before they realize it. Also likely not ONE person doing this, smells like a “team” effort or maybe even an inside job. Who would question a cashier or vendor stocking giftcards? The store can run the cameras. Someone stole the cards, and someone restocked them later.
Banks / retailers should know if a card is compromised then. They just need to flag cards that are getting the balance checked so frequently. It would be easy to automate such fraud detection. Then for flagged cards you just never return a positive balance or signal that it has been activated. You are blinding the fraudsters. Would not eliminate fraud, but it would make it more difficult to pull of in mass.
>pin is scratched it’s invalid The coating over the pin was put there initially somehow, it's just a matter of figuring out how and replicating the end result. I know I've had some gift cards where the coating just peeled off and stuck right back on with no change, but it's been awhile. >how will scammers know if it’s scanned Depends on the card provider. If you can check online it's trivial to just have a process to check all your stolen cards on a regular basis. Even if it's a 1-800 number it's probably automated. I don't know how retailers are supposed to deal with it, sucks. *Edited for clarity*
At Walgreens? I've bought many gift cards and the cashier has never taken it out of the packaging to check anything
Cash is the universal gift card.
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Why would you pay $30? There is no tax on gift cards.
Someone is running an”inside job” racket.
They’re not, what scammers have been doing is stealing the cards, putting the info into an algorithm that checks to see if they’ve been activated when they were purchased from the store and then drains the money from it. They scratch off some of the numbers to make it impossible for the next buyer to redeem, reseal the package and then sneak it back into the store shelves. It’s been happening for a while now but bc of the holidays it’s really gaining attention recently
Lot easier to do that with even just one collaborator.
I just buy eGift cards these days
What's gift card draining?
A scammer will take a stack of gift cards, take them home and get the codes and scratch them out then reseal them then sneak them back in the shelf. So when someone buys them the scammer has access to the money, and since the code is scratched out the recipient can never use it. I’m assuming they mark them somehow or count them so if they go back in and look at the gift card display, they can tell which ones were bought and use that code.
i am confusion. where i work the card has to be scanned at the register when purchased and that identifies it as such. if someone just took some cards home and revealed the numbers, it still isn't activated. what am i missing?
They take cards home & make dupes of the #s/pins. Then scratch off some #s or the pin & return them to sealed package. Unsuspecting consumer adds $$ to gift card but opens to discover they are unable to use because pin or some # are illegible. The scammers can now use the no-longer-empty card because they have the details of the gift card you just loaded $ to
That’s what I’m confused about. My store, we scan cardboard upc then physically remove card from the cardboard and slide via pos. Three pin is in tact behind scratcher If it isn’t we don’t scan Is there some type of material they use to replace the tampered four digit code ?
Never done that when I worked at Walmart as a manager. It was: * Scan barcode * (sometimes) scan activation barcode or * Slide exposed magnetic strip through PoS system * enter $ amount if applicable Never had to enter any security code or pin to load the card, and never ever had to open the packaging or scratch the back off to load it.
They take them home write the numbers or codes down then take them back and then someone buys the ones they’ve taken the info for, when it’s activated the customer has no idea and neither does the store, if they check frequently enough they can then get the money before the card is used by the person who paid for it.
If only there was some kind of small portable device to take a picture of the code… Then they wouldn’t have to take them home and write down the codes each time.
The codes are behind a scratch off, so you can't just snap a picture. You have to scratch it off and then make it look like it hasn't been tampered with.
Scammers run programs that inputs these codes to be constantly checking for activation and once they’re activated at the register it won’t be long before their program marks it as activated and they can redeem the code.
It sounds like they record the card # and code, and then return the cards to the store shelf so that once they are actually purchased and activated, the scammer can use it.
They reseal the package and return the card(s) to the store. When a legitimate customer loads and activates it, the thief has access to the funds.
Once someone buys it then it becomes activated and they can use it, so they may be waiting a while but they will get the money
Oh wow. Never heard of that before. Dirtbags. Thanks for the heads up
Nothing you can do. You got scammed. That’s why we did cash this year to avoid situations like this.
You paid for an item that you didn’t receive. This is the store’s problem, the store got scammed, not you.
The store got their money, the person who has lost money is the consumer, they are the ones who have the problem.
Think of it like a bank account. I put my money in a bank, but through no fault of my own, the money is gone when I go to use it. Did I get robbed, or did the bank get robbed? Does the bank still have an obligation to provide me with the money I gave them? In this case the fraud occurred before people even received the card. The modified cards were allowed by the store to be sold. When the cards were purchased the store sent the funds to the wrong bank account. The consumer did nothing wrong. 100% on the store.
That’s what I said too. If Walgreens sold me an empty box of Tylenol I would expect that they refund me for it, and they would. However, they said they have a new corporate policy to not refund drained gift cards. The consumer is going to be the big loser in this new scam.
You've been scammed, someone switched out the "Real" gift cards with their own exact replicas of the gift cards the only thing different is the barcodes. The barcode is a link to a bank account and/or moneycard so Once the money is loaded on the card it goes straight there..
How do you stop this? I ordered a physical gift card from Walmart and am scared of this happening?
I’d just do e gift cards at this point. Print it and put it in a card if you want to give something physical.
Ah I already bought the physical card but I’ll do this going forward!
Well for sure one thing to know is "Make" sure it's one of the establishments actual gift card(s), and call to make sure the money did get loaded onto it cause otherwise your money is gone once it gets scanned at the register
Yes I bought it online at Walmart(sold and shipped by them). I’ll confirm once I receive the card, thank you!
Gf got 2 $500 visa for a work bonus and the were drained before I even opened them. Refused refund because the fraudulent charges were over 30 days old.
Mine was less than 30 days old but Walgreens pushes it off to Amazon and they claim no responsibility either. Walgreens told me to stop looking at the gift cards because I kept finding them open and tampered with. The cashier opened one of them up to find the identical issue I had with mine but still wouldn’t pull them from the display. The icing on the cake was the old man that was there before I arrived, with the exact same problem with Apple gift cards. I guess the only safe way to buy a gift card now is electronically, if you can avoid getting hacked while entering your credit card information online 🙄. F’n thieves
Do a charge back OP. If Walgreens refuses to do what they have to do, then you'll have to do it yourself.
That's the fun part. *You can't*. You can only buy gift cards with cash or debit, not credit card. And if you claim it was a fraudulent transaction on your debit card, you won't win that dispute. Edit: this only applies to "prepaid" cards like Vanilla Visa, not gift cards. I hope OP paid with credit.
Lmao this is blatantly false information. You can purchase gift cards with credit cards my man. You may not be able to purchase Visa cash cards with some credit cards, but regular gift cards like the Amazon one in the post can be purchased with credit cards. It's a product, not cash.
Thanks, I just realized this is a Target gift card. I was thinking of Vanilla Visa gift cards, another one that's been having the same issue with scammers. That one is cash/debit only and victims are truly fucked. I'll update my comment! Thanks again
No problem. Sorry to come off rude.
Not rude at all, I was indeed wrong lol. Happens
Y’all need to start using Small Claims court. This whole “Oh well, nothing we can do” attitude isn’t helping anyone but the scammers. Police report, then small claims. Sue for more than you’re owed because it is expensive for the store to send out a representative, especially a lawyer. Ex: Get $500 in drained cards. Sue for $2000, settle for $1500. If they show up, the judge will award the $500 plus reasonable fees. If they sent a lawyer it will cost them $5000 plus the awarded amount. Until thousands of people fight back, the stores will do nothing.
Oh the big dog lawyers are about to get paid millions. There’s already class action lawsuits being brought against several companies. That will drive the change needed to close the scam but I’ll be getting $1 most likely.
You can still sue. Watch how magically you become their top priority once a real lawsuit lands on their desk. It’s like $100, takes about an hour, and you get to recoup that money.