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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Buyers Beware of Tampered Gift Cards

Summary: A Colorado reader found five Sam's Club gift cards on a Wal-Mart display rack whose protective stickers over the redemption codes had been peeled back and replaced, a scheme in which thieves redeem or transfer a card's balance online after an unwitting customer buys it. Aite Group senior analyst Kevin Morrison said the scam is not new but tends to increase around the holidays, when demand for the cards is far higher and store employees' attention spans shorten.

Why it matters: The tampering is invisible at the point of sale: the card looks intact, the buyer pays, and the thief drains the balance before the recipient ever tries to use it - and in this case the same Wal-Mart was linked to a second buyer who received tampered cards.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Fraud & Scams
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