Americans Falling Victim To Serious Crime

The holiday season is full of joy, gift cards, and those who are looking to exploit your gift-buying habits through a scam. This holiday season protect yourself from scams when buying gift cards by making sure to check the following things.

1. Spot tampered gift cards

If you find yourself looking to buy a gift card, but that gift card box appears to have been tampered with, then you might want to avoid it altogether. This is because scammers usually try to find the gift card number and pin information for the gift card and then return it to the shelf. From there they frequently check the balance until they can see that money has been added. Therefore, tampered gift cards could potentially be a risk as you could end up losing all the money you have spent.

2. Be wary of Apple gift cards

There is a viral TikTok video in which a woman shows an Apple gift card that she purchased where the last few digits of the card had been erased. As a result, she was completely unable to use the card and was unable to get a refund due to the strict return policy on these cards. This is why verifying the gift cards you buy in the store can be a key part of ensuring you don’t lose your money.

3. Avoid online “free gift cards” given as gifts for information

These sorts of exchange gifts will usually require a lot of your personal information, including your social security number and even your bank account. You should never provide this information to anyone online, as such you are much better off ignoring the free gift as it is most likely a scam.