HONOLULU (KHON2) – According to the the Better Business Bureau, gift cards are considered by many to be a popular and convenient gift-giving option – especially around the holidays.
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According to a new study from Capital One Shopping, 64 percent of U.S. consumers buy gift cards as holiday gifts. However, the BBB is warning shoppers that gift cards are also a target for scammers.
Cameron Nakashima from the BBB tells us a newer kind of gift card fraud has recently emerged, and it’s called “gift card draining.”
What the BBB sees is that gift card related fraud is on the rise – and “gift card draining” has changed the way we should approach gift card purchases.
Here’s how the scheme works:
Criminals will go to a shop – usually a big box store – they’ll tamper with gift card packaging to steal card information before it’s sold. They return the altered cards to store shelves and regularly monitor the balances to check if the cards have been activated. Once you buy and load money onto the card, the criminal swiftly drains the funds, leaving you or your gift recipient with an empty gift card. The catch — you usually only find out that your gift card has been drained when you go to use it.