Mastodawn

Hey everyone! I'm guessing a lot of you will be buying last minute gifts for people, and those tend to involve gift cards. Be very careful when you're buying these off-the-rack at retail stores that sell gift cards for various popular restaurants and brands. Especially those that are not in particularly tamper-proof packaging.

A friend just shared some photos he took after buying a bunch of Dardens restaurant gift cards for some gifts to clients. They didn't discover until leaving the store that several of the cards had been tampered with, their PIN scratch-offs re-covered with look-alike scratch off stickers. Also, the phony ones seem to have goofy looking barcodes, like they were scanned and printed by a laser printer without enough ink.

The trick here is the thieves pull the card out, scratch off the PIN part, record that, cover up the pin with fake tape, and then shove the thing back in the packaging and put it back on the shelf. Then, when someone buys it, the thieves can access the value on the card the minute it is activated (purchased).

The image shows two of these cards that are non-tampered (left) and two on the right that were. These cards can slide right out of their packaging with a little wiggling, and slide back in the same way.

Some stores keep their gift cards behind the counter for this reason. Might be best going for those instead of the ones in aisle 19.

BrianKrebs Dec 18, 2023

in before...this obviously is not a NEW thing. Just a heads up.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/buyers-beware-of-tampered-gift-cards/

Buyers Beware of Tampered Gift Cards – Krebs on Security

Thomas Traynor Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs All too easy. Was looking for a card and the clerk noticed that the PIN was scratched off. We checked the next one and it was OK and she was going through the remaining cards when we left to see what else was tampered with.

The IT Nerd Dec 18, 2023

One slight problem with buying gift cards from behind the counter. You're assuming the guy behind the counter isn't in on the scam. Perhaps a better option would be to only buy. them online.

varx/tech Dec 18, 2023

@The_IT_Nerd @briankrebs Mmm, and you can probably get nice low prices at discount-cardz.ru. :-P

waldi Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs There is a reason why retailers here switched to printing the numbers on the receipt. The physical cards are blank.

Cy Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs Or, you could just give people cash for Christmas. Because a gift card is categorically worse than cash, with no advantages. If you think cash is a soulless uncaring gift, you're deluded if you think a gift card is anything other than that, just because your corporate masters painted caring looking smiling people on their scam cards.

John Gordon 📷Dec 18, 2023

@cy @briankrebs Mostly true, except that there are times where you can get gift card at a discount (so, either cheaper for the giver, or more value for the recipient).

In general though, I agree. And avoid things like Visa ones which end up charging fees after a short time and reducing the balance without anything to show for it.

Acetopheles Dec 19, 2023

@cy @briankrebs gift cards can be a better alternative to money in situations where the recipient may have addiction problems where giving them money may have unintended consequences or feed bad habits.

I haven't seen this issue so rampant where I am, there are a lot of giftcards that are tricky to get into and the rub off part isn't so easily accessible on the back but it probably depends where you get them from

Carl (He/Him)Dec 18, 2023

I'm happy to say that I've been warning people about this method of theft for a few days now.

Lisa Stranger (Friendica)Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs Am I the only one who can't see the difference in this pic? It's great that you're telling folks to look, but what am I looking for? The images in the 2017 article were pretty clear. Is this the same stuff, or a new trick?

artisanrox Dec 19, 2023

@strangerthanfiction @briankrebs

You need to open the pic on its own to see in best resolution. The long bar codes are different. The left bars are solid but the right bars look like they have gaps in the print, like when a printer skips.

SmashedRatOnPress Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs Thanks for the reminder. Just today someone in my neighborhood reported getting hit by this scam, with gift cards purchased locally... to the tune of US$1800. 😱

Superdave!Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs I just got a bunch of Dunkin gift cards, off the rack, at Star Market. They feel well-attached to their big cards. Better keep them that way, so my recipients don't get concerned about tampering.

sandywb14 Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs send e-gift cards

grahamsz Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs Why would the barcodes be different or "goofy looking" on the tampered ones? As i understand this scam there'd be no need to replace the barcode.

Also shouldn't the issuer reasonably be able to detect this? Surely if a card is checked for validity before it's been sold then they should prevent it from being activated in the first place?

Surely these scammers must have to regularly check all the tampered cards, and odds are that'll happen before they are sold.

Mike J👹🐀 🤘🏻Dec 18, 2023

@grahamsz @briankrebs Why would the store make it their problem when they can make it yours?

BrianKrebs Dec 18, 2023

@grahamsz IDK. It could be that they are also placing some new type of plastic covering on top that interferes with the bar code looking correct. I'm not 100 percent sure. But look at the images.

grahamsz Dec 18, 2023

@briankrebs I see what you are seeing, but my instinct is that it's just a bad ribbon in whatever thermal transfer printer produced the cards. Surely the barcode would need to be correct and original to allow the card to be activated when some sucker buys it?

Having said that, I enjoy figuring out how these scams work and it's interesting if they've figured out how to do something with the barcodes

🇨🇦Dec 19, 2023

@briankrebs
Gift cards - where you take perfectly good money usable anywhere and trade it for limited functionality plastic that can only be used in some places.

mnemonicoverload Dec 19, 2023

It's weirdly controlling when you think about it, isn't it? Most charitably the gifter has a hang-up that giving cash is somehow too low-effort and or low class and least charitably the logic would be something like "I could just give you cash, but I can't let go of the idea that you'll spend it on something I don't approve of."

Urban Hermit Dec 19, 2023

@briankrebs I've got people digging through the dumpster at my apartment 3 times a night to sell other people's garbage on EBay. I always wondered what else they were doing, because that doesn't seem like enough to make a living. Too bad, I like buying those Google gift cards to top up games on my phone.

I guess I should top up my accounts in the parking lot before even driving home?

How are they getting notification that the funds are now available? Because that seems like the weak link.

@briankrebs I thought the scam was they stole unactivated cards and printed duplicate bar codes and stuck them on cards in the store. So when you activated a card in the store you would unknowingly be activating and depositing money on the cards they had in their possession.

Thomas Guyot-Sionnest Dec 19, 2023

@briankrebs Sometimes it's even worse, some cards, once activated, can be scanned at the register without even revealing the secret code.

All they have to do is scan/photograph a bunch of codes, print them and stick them to the back of real cards. Then after a while they come and pretend they have those cards they don't know the balance and try them, with luck they'll snatch any remaining balance.

tb Dec 19, 2023

@briankrebs In Germany the physical card in the store is just a token for the cashier to scan. (The store keeps it and it goes back on display.) Only after payment the receipt printer prints the actual gift card or mobile data upgrade etc.

@briankrebs #Funfact: To prevent these types of #scams basically all stores in #Germany either have them behind the counter in tamper-proof packages OR only have some scannable blanks so the cashiers don't have to type in an SKU and instead the coupon code is generated and printed after successful payment with the reciept...