That money, along with the victim's payment information, goes to the scammer,” he said.Ĭhris Hauk, consumer privacy champion at Pixel Privacy, told IT Pro that users must remember that Target, Taco Bell, and any other merchant or restaurant that offers gift cards won’t volunteer to help you check your gift card balance. On top of that, phishing sites can trick cardholders into reloading a card with more money. Scammers can trick users into handing over card numbers and other info, which they in turn use to make purchases or sell on the dark web. “Second, the potential revenue stream for fraudsters is twofold. Paul Bischoff, a privacy advocate at, told ITPro that gift cards are attractive targets for cyber criminals for a few reasons.įirst, gift cards can act as a difficult-to-trace currency because they usually aren’t tied to anyone. In November, these categories accounted for 59% of all gift card scams online. Retail and gaming are gift card scammers’ favorite targets heading into the holiday season. Researchers said November saw the highest rate of new gift card scams with 6,881 total new scam sites, over 229 new sites per day, and nearly 10 times more new gift card scam sites created than in January. A new gift card fraud spike began in September and continued into November, corresponding with the early start of the holiday shopping season, including mid-October’s Amazon Prime Day.
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