# Scams and Swindles



## Barliman Butterbur (Dec 2, 2006)

Just today I received two email alerts from friends about a gift card swindle going on this holiday season, so I thought that a thread about such things might be useful to the TTF community.

Here's the scam on gift cards ( http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/giftcardscam.htm ) as stated at TruthOrFiction.com: 

"Summary of the eRumor: 
A warning that crooks are taking down the card numbers of gift cards in retail stores before they are purchased and activated--then later going online and using the activated cards for shopping sprees.

"The Truth: 
The story is true and the procedure has been used by crooks, but it's not clear how widespread it is. Here are the facts:

"Gift cards are frequently found displayed for sale in retail stores, but they are useless until they are purchased and activated. The activation also determines how much money is on the card.

"According to the eRumor, thieves are copying down the numbers on the unsold cards. Some of them, for example, may grab a handful of from a display, go into a restroom to copy the information from them, then return them. Some cards have personal identification (PIN) numbers on them but they are hidden under a scratch-off covering. Some of the thieves go ahead and scratch that off so they can have the PIN numbers as well and unless you are aware of that, you may not notice that the PIN number was once concealed.

"Later when the cards have been purchased and activated, the thieves will use the cards, typically for purchases online.

"So there is the danger that a gift card that you purchased may end up being worthless because the money will be gone before you spend it.

"The eRumor recommends that you get a gift card from an employee behind a counter rather than use the ones that are displayed for all to see."

*CAUTION: If you hear of a scam or a swindle — especially if someone sends you word of one, or a hoax of any sort, do NOT post it here unless you first check it out and supply a link to your verification source!!! How do you do that? Go to any one of these sources:*

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/threatexplorer/risks/hoaxes.jsp
http://truthorfiction.com/

There are other such pages of course, but these four are among the best.

Barley


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