Friday, December 3, 2010

Yet More Gift Card Woes--Downer's Grove (Ilinois) Man Charged With Using Counterfiet Money to Buy Gift Cards

From the Illinois Trib-Local. It's getting so bad, people are actually printing fake money to buy these cards, then presumably intend to sell them to you online (as well as use them). So far, other people's credit cards have been stolen for them, and now fake money is being created to buy them...then sell them to you online. When you factor in jail time for fraud and receiving stolen merchandise, where's the discount exactly?

"A 26-year old Woodridge man was arrested after police say he used $1,400 in counterfeit $100 bills to purchase gift cards from a Downers Grove toy store, Downers Grove police said Thursday."

...

"According to a report, Unseld had purchased the cards at a different store located in the 1500 block of 75th Street a short while before. Police said the manager at the store contacted police after Unseld left the toy store because he believed the $100 bills were counterfeit. The manager also canceled the gift cards, a report states."

...

"Later, a store manager at the Butterfield store contacted police after Unseld and another female attempted to make a purchase, a report states. Unseld also requested to have funds on one of the gift cards transferred to a new card, which the store manager found unusual, police said."


Stick with the public library card--nobody seems to be going out of their way to fraudulently purchase one of those.

UPDATE: And on the heels of this story, ewe have another gift card fraud item: Dillard's Employee Arrested for Gift Card Scheme

"Police arrested a Dillard's employee who was allegedly creating fraudulent gift cards for himself and using them at other Southwest Florida stores."

...

"Investigators say King would take a previous customer's receipt from his register at the store he worked at in Naples and perform a return transaction on the items.

He'd then put the money on a gift card, according to police, and frequently use them at the Bonita Springs store."


As good an idea as gift cards seemed in the beginning, obviously they're rife with security holes, and these holes are being used by all sorts of people.

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