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Receiving Walmart Gift Cards for $1,500

My married woman runs a local non-profit, Foster Kinship, that helps kids and their families.  Recently another non-turn a profit purchased iii $500 gift cards from a local Walmart shop for a total of $one,500.  They gave the souvenir cards to Foster Kinship to purchase gifts for 50 kids as Christmas presents.

Very excited to get the gifts for the kids, my wife went to Walmart the day she received the gift cards (two days later on purchase).  She loaded up 3 shopping carts full of toys and got in line to buy the toys with her freshly donated gift cards.

Simply when she presented the cards to the checkout person, her joy turned to daze.

Walmart Gift Cards were Already Fraudulently Used

The cards had already been used.  All iii cards were completely and perfectly emptied out without fifty-fifty a penny left.  She'd been completely robbed!

What Happened to the Walmart Souvenir Bill of fare Balances?

Panicking, my married woman asked to talk to a director to endeavour to figure out what was happening to her.  This was a nightmare!

The manager printed out a couple receipts showing basic information of the transactions on the cards.

The three cards were each filled on December 7th, 2017 with $500 at store "5070 AC" which is located at 5200 S Fort Apache Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89148.  So they were all completely spent, to the penny, the next forenoon at store "9115 RD", which I'm guessing is Walmart.com.

My wife argued with the shop manager, telling him she did not spend this money and information technology was fraud.  The money was meant to purchase Chistmas gifts for kids!  Needy kids!

The manager continually insisted there was zilch he could do.  The store she was purchasing the toys from was non where the cards were purchased, and so the manager told my wife to go to the shop the cards were purchased at with the original receipt to see if the managing director at that store could exercise annihilation.

Really he was blowing her off.

Trying the 800 Number on the Walmart Souvenir Card

Regardless, my wife called the person at the non-profit that originally purchased the gift cards who subsequently went over to the other store and talked to the manager.  The manager there said he could do nothing.  He said it'due south a typical scam and Walmart doesn't care to prepare information technology because they have fraud insurance.

So my wife turned to calling the 800 number on the gift cards.  I of the options is to press #2 if you want to"report your gift carte lost or stolen".  When pressed, there'due south a recorded vox that says, "If you are calling to report your gift menu lost or stolen, please refer to "Walmart souvenir carte du jour terms and conditions" on Walmart.com.

Walmart'south Souvenir Bill of fare Terms and Conditions

Doing a quick search will land you on the "Walmart Gift Carte Terms and Conditions" page.  There you'll be admittedly amazed to see that they volition not replace lost or stolen cards.

Lost or Stolen Souvenir Carte du jour. Lost or stolen cards will not be replaced. Neither Wal-Mart.com United states, LLC nor Wal-Mart Stores Arkansas, LLC shall take liability to you for (i) lost or stolen Walmart Gift Cards or (ii) use of any Walmart Gift Cards past third parties through your Walmart.com business relationship. You are solely responsible for keeping the countersign for your Walmart.com account safe and for whatever activity conducted under your account.

At that place is nil on the folio about what to do if the bill of fare is fraudulently used, simply I'm guessing Walmart categorizes that under the "stolen" category.  Though the cards weren't stolen, the information was stolen and used to brand purchases.

Now I'm guessing that most people that fall victim to fraud on their gift bill of fare don't do much fighting for it because it'due south probably a smaller amount.  I'd judge the gift cards are usually filled with $10 - $fifty dollars.  So whomever is the victim of this fraud probable tries for a fiddling while to go their money back before giving up.  Information technology'southward probably not worth the hassle for many.

My married woman, fighting for $1,500 to be spent on 50 of her kids, was not nearly to give up!

Contacting the Local News

We contacted all the local news agencies.  It was a bomb of a story!  I pictured information technology reading, "$1,500 in Walmart gift cards, meant to buy toys for kids, fraudulently stolen from local non-turn a profit; Walmart doesn't care".

The headline needed to be cleaned up, simply yous get the idea.  It had bite.  Presents stolen from needy kids and a big corporate entity not caring.

2 local news programs jumped on the story and interviewed my wife.  Doing their diligence for the story, both news agencies contacted Walmart corporate.

This is what we needed... corporate to see at that place might be bad press which is non good for their brand.

And react Walmart corporate did.  They refunded the coin by giving u.s.a. new united nations-tampered gift cards.

The news usually drops their stories from their websites after a while but here are the local news stories:

• On Your Side: Warning against gift card scams
• UPDATE: Walmart helps Foster Kinship after they fall victim to scam

The bottom link above has to videos.  Come across the icons beneath the video player to play the original news segment.

Making National News

The story was even picked up by national news on the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt:

We got a bit lucky in that we are trying to practise a good affair and the printing was willing to help.  Simply merely know that Walmart does not have a process or solution for anybody else who's gift cards are fraudulently used.

If you want to see how many people are getting screwed by this scam, exercise a quick Google search for "walmart souvenir card scam 9115 RD"

I'yard guessing that what information technology would cost to combat the fraud problem would cost Walmart more is lost in fraud.  And really, they don't lose annihilation because they aren't refunding the typical cases of fraud.  They are just ignoring it.

How the Store-Bought Walmart Gift Card Fraud Scam Works

Now, I'm betting you are probably wondering how the fraud scam works.  And here is what I've discovered.

Below is a picture of ane of the souvenir cards that were fraudulently used.

Also the numbers I blacked out, practise you see anything funny?

Look closely at the scratch away strip.  See information technology nonetheless?  Not merely is it quite kleptomaniacal, at that place's a line of tape around the scratch off area.  Hither's a shut upwards with some arrows:

I hadn't see the cards until my wife got habitation after the whole state of affairs, just as soon as I looked at the strips, I knew something was funny.

These cards are produced by machines by the thousands.  Machines unremarkably don't put stickers on slightly kleptomaniacal.  Plus, I've never noticed the tape line around a scratch off before and thought to myself, I doubt these scratch off things are always taped on; I'd think there'due south a machine that directly prints the scratch-off coating on the bill of fare.

It turns out I was right.  Here is a picture of a legitimate gift card's scratch off strip.

There's no record around the scratch off expanse and it's only a tiny chip kleptomaniacal.

Hither is a picture of a card that has the original scratch off (left) and one that has been scratched and replaced with a taped-on tamper strip (right).

Then hither is how I think the scam plays out.

The gift cards are but hanging on a rack in the chief surface area of the store available for anyone to take hold of.  The gift cards are non activated, and then Walmart doesn't care if you lot steal a few.  They can't exist used in that status.

But the scammers are smarter than this state of affairs.  The scammer grabs a bunch of cards and either goes to the bathroom or takes them home to work on them.  The scammer does some work to go the cards out of the package and write down the card number.

Then they scratch off the scratch-off area and write down the pin number.

Adjacent the scammer puts a new, taped-on, scratch off surface area over  the pin number.  Aye, this is real, it's easy to purchase Security Tamper Axiomatic Scratch Off Labels Stickers for a few bucks on Amazon.

To the typical purchaser, the scratch off looks perfectly fine, like it'southward never been scratched off. It doesn't fifty-fifty matter if it's crooked, because the mutual purchaser doesn't know what they are looking at.  I fifty-fifty showed people the cards with the taped on scratchers, told them most the taped area, that it was kleptomaniacal, and they nevertheless couldn't readily meet the issue; they actually had to stare at it.

Finally the scammer puts the carte dorsum in the casing and puts it dorsum on the front of the rack.

And then they become habitation and simply continually check the card rest either online or through the 800 number.  Walmart probably sells tons of gift cards every day, specially around the Holiday season, and so it probably doesn't accept long for the card to be purchased and funded.

As presently as the scammer sees coin on the card, they head to Walmart.com and make purchases using the carte du jour number and pin number.

I'm guessing they transport the items to an unsuspecting address.  Probably they find a house that someone merely lives in part of the year.  Or perchance an old guy that never leaves his house.

The scammer tin can track the package and head over to the house and just grab it off the stoop once it's delivered; likely able to set upward accounts to receive texts equally soon as the package is delivered.

Nobody at the house complains, considering they weren't expecting the package.  The scammer could probably even put a name on the package that doesn't match the name of the people at the house (it will still get delivered) and if anyone questions them, they tin can just say it was their packet and it was delivered to the wrong address.

Or maybe they just deliver the stuff to their own homes.  Since Walmart isn't even looking into this scam and doesn't intendance about it, they can probably practice just that and not get caught.

If Walmart really wanted to investigate, I believe they easily could.  At that place has to be record of the ip address that was used to make the purchase with the stolen numbers.  That ip could be traced (ip addresses are like house street addresses for computers).  If the scammer was really careful, they may have purchased from an IP address at a place with open up WiFi (ie Starbucks), but this scam is and so simple and since the scammers are getting away with it, I'd bet the scammers aren't beingness that careful.

Or Walmart could pay attention to the stores where this is happening about and put security cameras on the gift card section and catch the person who slips the cards on and off.  In that location'due south no crime there, but Walmart could activate the cards and trace the whole interaction that takes place afterwords back to the perpetrator.  That's just a few ideas off the tiptop of my head.  I'thousand certain a good security expert could come up up with many other means to trace the scam to a scammer.

How to Protect Yourself from the Walmart Gift Menu Scam

Showtime, realize that  although these gift cards look similar credit cards, they are non credit cards, and therefore they do not have the protections of a typical credit carte!

This fraudulent scam is obviously one where someone else was able to get a concord of the carte du jour.  Then now that you know about it, you can cheque the pin scratch off strip to run across if it looks funny if buying a card that is non locked upwardly in a example somewhere.

But really, the lesson here is don't purchase gift cards off the rack.  Information technology'due south probably safe to buy them online.

I'd call up biggest protection would be not to buy the gift cards with cash. Buy souvenir cards with your credit card, such that you take recourse with a company that is not the vendor of the gift card should something go wrong.  I haven't verified information technology, but I'm betting yous can tell your credit card company that there was fraud on something that you purchased with their carte and they will give yous your money back (credit card companies desire you lot to experience safe using their cards, because they want yous to utilize them as much as possible).

This is probably where Walmart's fraud insurance kicks in.  Walmart would become what'southward called a "charge dorsum" from the credit card company which returns the money to you, the purchaser.  Then Walmart's insurance kicks in to cover the loss.  Or the losses are so modest relative to their gargantuan revenues that they simply don't care nigh the small losses.

Incidentally, one story that ran just before my wife's stories was nigh how an Amazon customer had their package stolen correct off their front porch and amazon immediately refunded their purchase without question.  And so mayhap try buying Amazon Gift Bill of fare online as they at to the lowest degree take a nicely posted policy that isn't blatantly saying they don't care: Amazon Gift Card Policy on Lost or Stolen Gift Cards.

Personally, I predict sometime in the not-too-distant futurity at that place will be a class activeness law suit against Walmart (and possibly other companies; every bit the whole gift card matter may be handled through a 3rd party service) that are ignoring this type of fraud.   People are getting screwed and Walmart is looking the other way while profiting from it.

Your Gift Card Is in the Process of Being Activated. Please Try Again Later. Walmart Visa

Source: https://www.terrycaliendo.com/walmart-gift-card-fraud-scam-walmart-doesnt-seem-care-fix-store-9115-rd/

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