Gift cards have become a multibillion-dollar industry, but scams involving their use as payment have cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two years according to the Better Business Bureau. In fact, Jim Temmer, the President and CEO of BBB Serving Wisconsin says that: “If you’re asked to make payment via gift card for whatever reason, you almost certainly are dealing with a scam.”
Those scams involve government impersonators, compromised business emails, and frauds claiming tech support, fake checks, prize scams and online sales of nonexistent vehicles.
Scammers like gift cards because they’re hard to trace, and they involve brands people trust like eBay, Google Play, Target, iTunes, Amazon, and Steam. And unlike credit cards, they don’t carry the same legal protections so if you’re caught, you’ve lost the money forever.
The BBB says no government agency ever requests money through gift cards, and reading back numbers to the scammer is just like handing them currency, so never do that. And if you do get caught, look for a customer service number on the back of the card and call it right away.
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