SDM - Gift Card Scams reminder

[Silk]

Just fyi, if you lose your sdm gc, sdm will not replace the balance. It happened to me. They told me it's considered cash. (Not talking about fraud, just loss.)

Some other stores will, but not sdm. Just a heads up

Silk

[torontogal12]

Thank you for this important reminder canpip

In the past 2 years, people bought SDM GC and the value was stolen.

The crooks have found a way to rob you of your gift card balance. If you buy Gift Cards from a display rack that has various store cards you may become a victim of theft.

Gift cards have a unique number in a magnetic strip that is used to track usage and outstanding balances. This usually works well, and has the benefit that you often won't lose your remaining balance if you lose the gift card, since you can simply call to report the card as stolen or lost.
Now imagine that a scammer comes into a store that displays gift cards on public racks (such as Wal-Mart) with a small and inexpensive mag-strip scanner in his pocket. This scanner can easily read and store the unique gift card serial numbers.
So, the scammer simply grabs some of these gift cards from the rack, finds a quiet place and quickly scans each card to get its unique serial number. They then put the cards back (or leave them somewhere in the store) since they are done with them.
(Incidentally, this high tech approach isn't even needed. The crook can simply copy the unique numbers by hand on a pad of paper. However, this is much more time consuming.)
Depending on the gift card packaging, this can be very easy to accomplish or the crook might need to pry the gift card from its base and then carefully reposition it back after stealing the number. In either case, it's not very difficult for the scammer to do this.
Next, real customers come in to buy some of these gift cards and "charge" them with real money.
How does the scammer know which gift cards have been charged? Every few days, he simply calls the gift card phone number and enters the unique numbers to find out which cards have been charged -- and what the remaining balances are.
Most of these systems don't require a password, so it is very easy for the scammer to do this. Other times the scammer is able to steal the PIN at the same time as the gift card number.


And since most of these gift cards aren't given to the recipients until Christmas, most of the cards will be fully charged!
The scammer can then go on a shopping spree and drain the gift card balances.

Always keep your receipt as a proof of purchase as long as there is money stored on the gift card. Since many retailers can track where the gift card was purchased, activated and used, if the card is stolen, some retailers will replace the card for you if you have your receipt.

After all these happening, SDM still have GC that don't have a pin, when you buy SDM GC please buy the one with a pin to avoid trouble.

[Sunraven]

Thanks for posting the reminder.

[nothingsweeterthanadeal]

interesting, im not sure ill buy alot of gc's now

[gobo]

After all these happening, SDM still have GC that don't have a pin, when you buy SDM GC please buy the one with a pin to avoid trouble.

what's that pin for? I have a gc with pin. You don't need it when you pay or check the balance through the 1800 number.

[jlh]

Wondering about the same. I think in the past for some gift card I see people need to enter the pin if the card can't swipe, i.e. need to manually enter the card number, it require the pin to be entered. Maybe that is what the pin is for here.

what's that pin for? I have a gc with pin. You don't need it when you pay or check the balance through the 1800 number.

[littlebean]

"Other times the scammer is able to steal the PIN at the same time as the gift card number. "

So, they CAN take an empty card, scan it, and obtain the PIN number too? So why is it better getting ones WITH pins? Are they harder to crack?

[littlebean]

Also, I just thought....what if the ones on display are then MOVED to behind the register, so the cashier has easy access to them during a big promo like this? Even then you aren't safe with taking the ones behind the register.....

[kellyschool1]

This might not be a popular post on what I am about to type but so be it. As we all know this is the internet and this post can be accessed by anyone. Even with the most "simple" people can take those very detailed instructions on how to steal a gift card and do it. I dont need back lash but my point being is that the post IMHO should be less detailed. Its practically a manual on how to rip ppl off. Thats my 2 cents.

[torontogal12]

Counterfeiting involves huge organized crime rings. Those people don't need the internet to teach them how to do things. Also, some regular person would not have the equipment to scan metallic strips and print fake gift cards. And this information is no different from what a store manager will tell you when you are a victim of gift card fraud. A store manager told all this information to me

This might not be a popular post on what I am about to type but so be it. As we all know this is the internet and this post can be accessed by anyone. Even with the most "simple" people can take those very detailed instructions on how to steal a gift card and do it. I dont need back lash but my point being is that the post IMHO should be less detailed. Its practically a manual on how to rip ppl off. Thats my 2 cents.

[tjthemanto]

Yup ..be extremely careful with Gift Cards and monitor them constantly .

The worst thing is when you give it as a gift to someone and there is nothing left on it , bcoz the thieves stole all the value on it.

Lot of times the recipient is too polite to tell you as they don't want to offend you or embarass you , so you never know.

[carlyincanada]

Thanks for the reminder...crazy stuff for sure! My mom recently had someone try to hack into her online banking account!! Luckily the bank called her right away & she had to go into the branch & get a new bank card!!
I think I will just give cold hard CASH (to son/niece) & avoid all this worry!!

[kellyschool1]

Like I said in my original post these are very detailed. I beg to differ that there is someone out there that would jump at the chance to do this even if they didnt get anywhere. Regardless its ridiculous to even have to worry now about someone ripping off your gift card.I hope it doesnt happen to anyone.

[littlebean]

so can these hackers hack into the PIN number too that's covered on the card?? these ones are still better to get than the non-pin ones right?

[roxybabe39]

Whoa! Didn't even know this was possible!

Thanks for the heads up.. I will definitely be keeping better track of my GCs from now on

I'm so careful with my debit or mastercard- my parent's had $64,000 taken out of there account!!! After the money was taken out they tried taking more out and then they froze the card! Thankfully they returned it all but there was about 15 other people in the bank the same day with the same issue