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By Pete McIntyre
Basically untraceable

Gift card scams popular with fraudsters

Sep 25, 2020 | 10:43 AM

Some good — and simple — advice from RCMP: Anyone who tries to demand payment from you via a gift card is a scammer.

While many people use gift cards to send a present to friends or family members, a growing number of criminals see it as a perfect medium to steal your money.

Whether masquerading as police officers, Canada Revenue agents, tech-support personnel, or even stranded grandchildren, scammers will often attempt to get victims to buy gift cards and transfer the code numbers or PINs to them.

“Gift cards are popular with fraudsters because they are anonymous and basically untraceable. They operate like digital cash and are easy to convert to cash, merchandise or even cryptocurrency,” said Cpl. Jocelyn Noseworthy, media relations officer for Kelowna RCMP.

According to police, one of the most common gift card frauds looks like this: A caller will contact you with some sort of emergency (you owe money, there’s an arrest warrant, your grandchild is in trouble). They tell you to go to a store, or a string of stores and buy a popular gift card such as iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon. You are then instructed to call them back and give them the card number and PIN on the back of the card. Once you’ve done that, they have immediate access the money you loaded onto the card and the scammer and your money are gone, often without a trace.

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As for how to protect yourself from this type of scam, Noseworthy said the easiest way is to remember that gift cards are for gifts, not payments.

“Anyone who is trying to demand payment via gift card is a scammer.”

For more information on common scams and frauds, as well as tips to protect yourself, check out the following link: antifraudcentre

by Pete McIntyre
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