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The Gift Card Fraud Prevention Alliance is launching a nationwide social-media campaign to combat gift card fraud this holiday shopping season.
The campaign, which runs from Oct. 1 through Christmas Day, will deliver daily messages through the LinkedIn and Instagram platforms on the tactics criminals use to perpetrate gift card fraud and ways consumers can avoid falling victim to those scams.
The Gift Card Fraud Prevention Alliance is a public-private partnership comprised of retailers—including national chain stores, grocery outlets, and specialty merchants—state retail associations, and local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies.
Gift card fraud represents a substantial portion of overall fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission. In 2023, gift card fraud accounted for $217 million out of the $10 billion in total consumer fraud losses for the year, according to the latest FTC figures of gift card fraud.
Common ways in which criminals perpetrate gift card fraud include: impersonating government representatives demanding immediate payment of overdue fees or fines; impersonating a technical support agent; and physically tampering with gift cards in-store before they are sold.
In the case of tampering, criminals will open gift card packaging in-store to obtain the card’s account number, reseal the package and wait for a consumer to buy the compromised card. Once the card is activated, the criminal drains its value. Scams can be carried out through multiple channels, including phone, email and text, according to the Gift Card Fraud Prevention Alliance (GCFPA)
Criminals frequently set up fake retailer Web sites and buy Google ads to trick consumers into entering their card account data to check the card’s balance.
The GCFPA recommends that consumers never buy gift cards to pay a debt, bail someone out of jail, or send as emergency cash to criminals pretending to be a trusted individual. Consumers are also urged to report all gift card scams they encounter to local police, state attorneys general, and the Federal Trade Commission.
