And those gift card companies want to give that money back," the FTC said in its blog post. Here are steps, highlighted by the agency, that consumers should take if they suspect they have been conned.

If anyone tells you to pay with a gift card or to buy gift cards for anything other than a gift, it’s a scam. You’ll lose your money, and you won’t be able to get it back.

Card draining occurs when a thief tampers with a gift card and "drains" the money before the funds are used by the consumer. AARP reported last year that 23% of U.S. consumers had given or ...

Gdovic, a Colorado resident, said she loaded a Target gift card with $200 for a friend whose daughter was having a baby, not knowing the card was already scammed. "I gave it to her.

Oddly, the $200 on the second gift card was fine. And so were two other gift cards her brother had bought for another family member. Losing $199 all of a sudden was mind-boggling.

Gift card and reload card fraud cost $228 million last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. What is being done about this scam? The Retail Gift Card Association and Vanilla Gift tell ...

A gift card issuer is facing a lawsuit over allegations it failed to make its popular prepaid cards less susceptible to a common scam. The lawsuit, filed last month by San Francisco City Attorney ...

Shoppers planned to buy three to four gift cards, spending about $50 per card, the group said, boosting total gift-card spending in 2023 to $29.3 billion, up from $28.6 billion last year.

The gift card has long been criticized as a lazy, impersonal gift choice. But for all the passionate naysayers who call gift cards a ” a failure of society on all levels,” there are equally ...

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore recently signed the Gift Card Scams Prevention Act of 2024, creating the country’s first law aimed at curbing a rising form of gift card fraud called card draining.