Gift Card Scams are widespread in the festival seasons. Scammers use new tricks and techniques to reach people and lure them into their trap. As a result, people lose millions every year to the hands of online swindlers. This write-up gives you a detailed description of gift card scams and effective tips to stay safe. So let’s get started!
What Are The Common Types Of Gift Card Scams?
There are different categories of gift card scams that fraudsters use to defraud ordinary people. They are named as romance scams, lottery scams, legal scams, tech support scams, and business scams. To stay safe and protect your money from swindlers, it is highly recommended that you learn to spot them before they take any toll on you. Here are some common types of online scams:
Lottery Prize
The lottery prize scam is a common example of a gift card scam. In this scam, you receive a call, email, or text notification from an unknown person. The message informs you that you have won a lottery or prize money. It asks you to pay the upfront fees and tax dues immediately to claim your prize money. The coupon’s validity is short and requires quick action before it expires. It warns that if you fail to pay the money on time, then you won’t get anything.
People often fail to sniff out the danger behind the scenes and take wrong steps in the heat of the moment. To claim the prize, they make hasty decisions and end up paying the amount to the scammers.
Fake Officials
Sometimes scammers pretend to be government officials and barge into private properties. They scare people and ask them to pay their tax dues and bills to avoid heavy fines and penalties. To lure the victim, they provide an easy way to pay off their dues, which is through buying gift cards and sharing their details, like codes, with the agent. According to them, this is the fastest and convenient method to pay their dues. Moreover, they promise exemptions for paying the full amount if this process is used to settle the amounts.
With the offer of heavy exemptions in dues and victims become overexcited over the promise. They buy vouchers and share the details with the fake officials. Swindlers take all the vouchers and money with them and leave the scene, giving them a one-week time period to settle all the issues. But after one week, the victim realised that it was all a conman`s trick to swindle money by pretending to be a government official.
Romance Scams
Romance scams are one of the most common ways that fraudsters approach people to steal money from them. In this type of scam, scammers target emotionally vulnerable people and show fake interest in love to gain the trust of the victim. They show affection, loyalty, and constantly praise their target. Once the victim starts trusting them and sharing their personal life experience, scammers throw their card. They start manipulating the victim and ask for gift cards as “a sign of love.”
Feeling attached, many victims buy expensive gift cards or vouchers and give them to fraudsters. After some time, the scammer creates a dramatic situation, such as suddenly being transferred to a new city or facing an urgent financial problem. They ask for more money to settle some dues and promise to pay it back once they are stable in their “new job.”
Out of love and sympathy, the victim sends the money in the form of gift cards. But once the scammer gets what they want, they disappear. By the time the victim realizes the relationship was fake, they have already lost their hard-earned money.
Fake Family Members
Scammers can act like family members, distant relatives, friends, or acquaintances to approach their target. They contact the victim and tell them that they are stuck in a complicated situation far from their home. They need money urgently to get out of the situation. The fraudster asks them to buy vouchers and share the details with them. They promise to pay back the money once they are back home. People often get eager to help their near ones to get them out of difficulty. So they buy and share gift cards with scammers, only to their distress. As soon as they share gift cards with the people near them, they take the money and disappear.
Utility Companies
Sometimes you get fake calls from utility companies such as electricity, water supply, or telecom companies. The agent on the call informs you about an unknown error in your bill and demands immediate payment to resolve the issue. They ask you to pay your bill using unconventional methods such as wire, gift card, or voucher. Also, they force you to pay the amount as soon as possible to avoid extra charges or disconnection of your service.
Tech Support
Tech support is another common tactic fraudsters use to bilk money from innocent people. Scammers act as certified experts from a trusted platform such as Apple, Google, or Microsoft. They approach users and inform them that their systems are infected with malware and viruses, and if this malicious software is not removed from the device sooner, it will corrupt their system, steal stored data, or delete the necessary files from it. Victims become hopeless and act impulsively to conform to whatever the caller asks for.
Scammers ask for buying the Gift Card and share the details with them, and in turn, they will fix their system issue. They claim to install computer security software in their system to detect and remove the hidden viruses in their system. But to complete this task, they ask for payment in the form of a gift card. As soon as the victim buys the vouchers and shares their numbers and codes with the agents, they lose their money.
QR Code Tampering
Black hats hijack QR codes by pasting a fake QR code over the real one. The fake ones are bundled with malicious sites and illegitimate payment links. If a person scans these codes, they are led to malicious websites. One wrong click and malware is downloaded to their devices. Also, sometimes, a victim ends up paying an amount to a black hat when they scan these malicious codes. Hence, fake QR codes are also used to commit gift card fraud.
Diverse Gift Card Scams
There are various other types of gift card fraud in which scammers use different tools and techniques to convince people to buy vouchers and share their details. For example, they promise a dream job opportunity to a person if they buy them gift vouchers and pay for e-presents.
In all situations, the same pattern follows. That is, a swindler convinces their target person to buy vouchers and share the information with them. Using this information, they quickly claim the funds and become invisible. Victims cannot find them or track the transactions redeemed using their e-gift vouchers.
How To Prevent Gift Card Scams?
If an unfamiliar or official member of an agency or business asks you to pay money using a Gift card, they are most likely a scammer. Don’t act quickly or provide anything confidential to such an individual. You may suffer financial loss in the course of the event. If you ever come across such a situation, you should know that such demands are only from a fraudster. Do not make any hasty decisions if you want to avoid voucher fraud. Be cautious while dealing with strangers asking for payments using gift cards. Here are some effective tips that can help you beat the scammers efficiently.
Verify Requests
First things first, it is highly recommended not to take any requests from strangers and unknown individuals for real. Instead, you should verify it and learn about its reality and validity. Whether you get a call, text message, or email from an organization, it is important that you contact the services using the official support numbers and other contact details. Before this, do not respond to any of the requests; you will face trouble in the following events if you avoid them.
Report Suspicious Contacts
If you find anything suspicious and harmful about the request, then do not stay calm. Instead of this, report the suspicious activities as soon as possible. Note down the numbers, text messages, and emails you received from unknown sources and mention them in your report. Fraud investigation agencies like the FTC will find out the people working behind these scams and protect others from losing their hard-earned money. Your small efforts can help cyberfraud prevention agencies track the real culprit and protect other people from scams.
Clarify the Urgency of the Matter
Scammers often use urgency as a convincing tool to force their victims to take immediate action. Hence, if you come across any such emergency requests, then it is an obligation upon you to clarify such emergencies and urgent requests before you act. If things are not matching and you find things missing during your investigations, then do not cooperate, or do not share any personal details with the unknown person contacting you. Do not become lured by their promises and urgent, lucrative offers. These are all tactics that black hats use to seduce their victims into committing mistakes that lead to financial fraud.
Using Fraud Detection Tools
Fraud detection tools are another best way to deal with voucher fraud. These tools are specially built to detect suspicious activities connected to gift card purchases. They analyze transaction data in real-time and block unsafe purchases to prevent the impact of scams. You will get notification alerts if anyone tries to use your cards without your specified permission. Hence, implementing anti-fraud programs will be highly helpful to protect your online transactions.
Restrict On High-Value Vouchers
It would be best to set limits on your high-value gift-card purchases. Doing so will do away with the risks of large amounts of financial loss in the process. This policy is highly effective with regard to small, medium, and large businesses. It will create a barrier, making things difficult for fraudsters to commit huge financial scams. As a result, scammers will not attempt any fraud on any business to steal their valuable money.
Track the Gift Cards
Tracking gift cards is essential to ensure the safety and security of your e-vouchers. It allows you to detect and track the illegal activities related to their usage and the source of redemption. This technology helps people and businesses use preventative measures to deal with harmful activities and scams along the way. It helps you identify vulnerable security points and other unauthorized transfers. Due to this, you will be able to monitor the potential security risks and vulnerabilities in the near future.
Robust Return Policy
Configuring strict return policies will be highly helpful in dealing with gift card fraud. In this policy, merchants ensure that the amount is returned to the original payment method instead of being turned into vouchers. It can reduce the risk of big losses that happen during the return of gift cards. Including robust refund policies in the statement and the process is another important thing that one should include in this policy. These statements keep things clear for all the parties involved in the transactions, especially for the customers. In case of any error or misunderstanding, customers can get full compensation for the purchase amount.
Buy From Authentic Retailers
Make sure to use only authentic platforms to buy your vouchers. They follow a strict customer-centric policy to ensure the legitimacy of their gifts and complete client satisfaction. Trusted retailers provide 24/7 customer support services to listen to customer queries and payment issues that come up during any transaction. Here you can find easy solutions to deal with the underlying payment problem. Besides, there is full protection against fraud, fake vouchers, and already-used coupons.
Follow Strict Activation Rules
You should use strict rules to activate and redeem the voucher to protect it from potential fraud. These rules can include the intervention of physical staff to activate the code properly and beat the scammers at stealing their money. Online activation without the help of actual agents poses a significant threat of fraud and scams. It increases the risk of tampering and data theft. The presence of the customer and the vendor at the same place prevents the unsafe delivery of the voucher value.
Use An Account To Buy Cards
It is highly recommended that you create an account to buy the gift voucher. It will enhance your checkouts, mitigate risks, and beat the scammers. Most importantly, this configuration allows companies to collect customer data and details that help authenticate their information and deliver the amount to the right client. Companies become capable of contacting customers and notifying them about important events and transaction history, analyzing buying patterns, and delivering personalized services to customers.
Conclusion
The crux of the matter is that if you receive calls, messages, or emails from a government official, tech support agent, or company employee offering a gift coupon to pay for your bill, due amount, or similar request, be aware that you are being scammed. Reputed companies and authentic government organizations never ask for payment through vouchers. No utility company follows any of the methods to accept their payments. The messages, calls, chats, or emails you are receiving that ask for payment via Gift vouchers are potentially fraudulent.
Whenever you come across such elements, make sure not to respond to them or do as they ask you to do. Instead, you should make an investigation, report the incident to the online scam investigation authorities, and block the contact instantly. Take your time and do some research for clarification. Call the authentic agencies and relate your case. You will be able to deal with the issue appropriately.
