The holidays bring on “scam season,” and officials say this year a major thing to be wary of is gift card fraud.
The Wisconsin Department of Trade and Consumer Protection says a discounted gift card may sound like a good deal, but Director Michelle Reinen says most of the time those promotions are too good to be true…
“…they may not have the actual value on them that you want, they may not be any good, and they may be counterfeit gift cards and you need to be really careful about that. They may have never been activated as well. So be real leery of promotions when you’re looking at the cut rate or the free gift card.”
Reinen says consumers should also be leery of emails or posts on social media advertising a “free” gift card in exchange for filling out a survey…
“…they’re usually for very popular retailers when we’ve seen this scam play through. You hand over all your information that a scammer can turn around and use later or an identity thief could use it and try to steal your identity, but you never get your gift card in the end. So you’ve traded for nothing…”
Reinen says when buying a gift card, always inspect its packaging; She says don’t buy it if it looks like it’s been tampered with, and when you buy a gift card, she says always get a receipt with the gift card’s activation code.
