How To Issue A Refund On Spirits 2000 Cash Register V3.0.1

Monday May 10, 2021

viii Gift Menu SCAMS you can SPOT and Hands Avert!

woman holding mobile pay device

What is a Gift Bill of fare Scam?

Souvenir card scams don't happen that often, but those that do are piece of cake to spot and avoid! Compared to credit carte fraud and other forms of identity theft, gift card theft is really quite pocket-sized and the damage done is generally limited to the value of a gift carte. But it doesn't affair if fraud is prevalent or not when you are the one with a gift carte du jour that does not piece of work. So permit's look at the various souvenir card fraud schemes that can happen and identify warning signs that something could be amiss. Though scammers tin can be catchy and pretty persuasive, you generally should be able to avoid gift card scams by following the tips below.

ane. Must Pay with Gift Cards (IRS and iTunes)

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: A customer receives a threatening voice message from a scammer pretending to be from the U.South. Internal Revenue Service. To avoid existence arrested for tax evasion, the victim is told that he or she can pay the fine with iTunes gift cards or other gift cards. In a similar case, a "State Trooper" calls to say that the victim failed to show upward for jury duty and there is warrant out for his or her arrest. To avoid going to jail, "bail" can be exist paid using "MoneyPak" as a bond until the case is cleared.

Once gift cards are purchased, the scammer will ask the victim to repeat the gift card numbers over the phone–at which time, the scammer drains the value of the gift cards. Victims who fall for the initial ploy are oft told to go back to the shop to buy boosted gift cards.

Quick Tips!

1. Hang Up on Fake Callers
No reputable company nor authorities agency (including the IRS) will ever demand payment with gift cards. If someone claims to be from the IRS, hang up. (Don't believe emails either.)

2. Balance Check in Individual
If someone asks to mind equally you call to confirm the balance of a souvenir bill of fare, it is likely a scam.

3. Inspect Souvenir Card Packaging
If the packaging looks tampered with or the Pin is revealed, plough the gift card into the cashier and pick a different card.

iv. Cheque the Activation Receipt
Be sure the gift card number listed on the activation receipt matches the souvenir carte you receive. Alert the manager if it'due south non a match.

5. Merely Purchase from Reputable Resellers
Only buy discount gift cards from a souvenir card reseller that has customer service and will give you lot a money-back guarantee on purchases.

vi. Save Activation Receipt
Whenever you purchase a souvenir card, relieve the purchase and activation receipt until the souvenir card is redeemed.

On the surface, this scam seems really easy to spot and hard to believe, just given that Americans accept been swindled out of near $40 million from it, there is apparently more than to the story. According to this commodity on the IRS iTunes gift cards scam, "scammers posed as U.S. Internal Revenue Service officials and left victims voicemails accusing them of tax evasion and threatening them with arrest." The article goes on to say that the callers were highly trained and very disarming.

RED FLAG: No reputable visitor nor the IRS or any government agency will always demand payment via gift cards.

WHAT TO DO: If you become a phone phone call from someone telling you to brand a payment with gift cards, hang upwards the phone. If you become an email from a visitor telling you to make a payment with souvenir cards, delete it. Don't be fooled. If you have any doubts that the call or email is legitimate, contact the visitor yourself. Don't call the number given to you on the voice bulletin, and don't answer to the email or click any of the links inside of it. Initiate the call yourself.

ii. Balance Check iii-Way Phone call

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: A person lists a gift bill of fare for sale on a classified ads website. When an offering is made, the heir-apparent asks the seller to confirm the remainder on the menu past calling the merchant in a 3-mode call. While listening to the seller enter the gift menu number, the buyer records the touch tone numbers entered to intercept the gift card number. The fake heir-apparent then uses the souvenir carte number without paying for it.

Although this scam seems pretty obvious in hindsight, people are often fooled because the scam simply makes sense. It's natural that a person buying a gift card would want proof of the gift carte du jour'due south balance before completing the transaction. In this article on how gift cards are drained, a victim from Ohio explains how he lost a $400 Best Buy gift card considering he allowed the heir-apparent to listen in on a three-manner call equally he confirmed the gift card balance. Before long after he hung up the telephone, someone used the Best Buy gift card to make a purchase in California. Lesson learned.

Ruddy FLAG: If someone asks to listen to your rest enquiry phone call or wants to look over your shoulder while you enter the numbers, information technology's probably a scam.

WHAT TO Practice: The all-time manner to avoid this gift bill of fare scam is to only sell souvenir cards to a reputable gift card reseller that offers a money-back guarantee.

banner with gift cards

three. BOT Steals the Souvenir Card Residuum

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: Hackers use a bot called GiftGhostBot to run through a store's online gift card rest cheque system looking for a lucifer–meaning a valid souvenir menu number with an activated balance. Once the bot finds a match, hackers use the souvenir menu themselves or sell it on the "dark web."

RED FLAG: If you detect the balance of your gift card is gone, then contact the gift menu issuer immediately.

WHAT TO DO: The best way to avoid this souvenir card scam is to simply use gift cards soon subsequently you lot receive them, leaving picayune opportunity for a bot to notice your souvenir card in the system.

I also suggest checking your unused gift bill of fare balances ofttimes. An like shooting fish in a barrel way to do this is to load your plastic and egift cards into a gift card app or your smartphone's mobile wallet, both of which allow yous to perform an automated balance research. Lastly, if you accept an unwanted souvenir card–ane that you are not probable to use–then sell it for cash. People who buy discount gift cards are ofttimes planning to use them quickly so that is another way to ensure gift cards are used past their rightful owners.

For Merchants: Although I accept heard it suggested that merchants prohibit balance check from their systems and instead require consumers to call a telephone number for residual inquiry to avoid this blazon of attack, I believe merchants should put security measures in place rather than inconveniencing consumers. Uncomplicated steps such as requiring a PIN or CVV in order to redeem a gift card or monitoring the number of remainder inquiries that come up into the arrangement should help.

4. Stolen Bill of fare Number

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: In this scam, a thief removes a souvenir card from a display, records the number and then puts the gift card back in the display. And then the scammer waits for a customer to buy the compromised gift card, checking the balance online until a dollar amount is loaded onto the menu. As soon as a rest appears, the thief uses the gift card number online or makes a duplicate plastic gift carte du jour that tin can be used in stores.

This souvenir card scam works best when there is a controlled number of gift cards available such every bit a minor merchant with a stack of x gift cards on the counter. At a larger shop, the souvenir cards near the cash register or on the ends of the rack would virtually likely be the ones affected.

Carmine FLAG: If someone tries to become you to purchase a particular gift menu, it could be a scam. Option a souvenir card from the centre of the rack or from a less-frequented surface area of the store.

WHAT TO DO: Since impatient thieves will put the gift cards they swiped back on the front of the rack, select gift cards that are less accessible. At a grocery shop gift carte du jour kiosk, for case, you might select a card hanging in the center position on ane of the pegs rather than those that are hanging in the first position. In other words, don't be lured by the almost obvious souvenir card on the rack.

happy dad gift card in a box

5. Tampered Packaging

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: To protect consumers from the swiped gift carte du jour fraud described in a higher place, some gift bill of fare manufacturers have added special packaging or scratch-off personal identification numbers (PINs) to their cards to prevent thieves from being able to only look at the cards to steal the gift card numbers. Though a deterrent, the packaging and PINs haven't fully stopped scammers. Some thieves will nevertheless take the packaged cards, open them to get the numbers, and and then tidy the envelope back up in hopes no one will notice. Some likewise scratch off the Pivot and re-cover it with a sticker or just exit it entirely exposed. In one case the scammer has admission to the gift card number, he or she will utilise it as presently as an unsuspecting customer activates the bill of fare.

Scarlet FLAG: If the packaging looks tampered with in any style, it could be a scam. Check to run into what other souvenir cards expect like, inspecting the seams, PIN's and annihilation else that could be amiss.

WHAT TO DO: When buying a gift card, advisedly check the packaging or PIN label. Don't simply look for the obvious dismantling of a card, however. Scammers work hard to exist discreet, using razor blades to divide the envelopes or scratch the PIN labels off with intendance. If the card looks tampered with in any mode, plow it into the cashier and buy a different gift carte.

6. Switched at Checkout

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: This gift menu scam only works when a store employee is part of the plan. Equally the client hands a gift card to the cashier for activation, the cashier activates a different carte and hands the original back to the customer. (Or the opposite is true. The cashier activates the starting time card, simply easily an inactive card to the customer.) In either example, the cashier racks upwardly activated gift cards while handing out blanks.

Red FLAG: If the employee acts distracted or tries to distract yous during gift card activation, it could exist a scam. If the gift card number doesn't match the number on the activation receipt, this is also a trouble.

WHAT TO DO: Keep your eye on the gift card at all times and ask to take it handed back to you equally soon as the carte du jour is activated. Check the gift card number listed on the activation receipt to ensure it matches the number on the card you simply received likewise.

7. Discount Double-Dip

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: Thanks to the popularity of souvenir cards in general, there is a assisting gift carte reseller market that consumers tin can employ to sell their unwanted gift cards for cash or buy other gift cards for less than face value. To shorten the fourth dimension between buying and selling these gift cards (and to eliminate the need to send the physical plastics), many online resellers accept gift codes–the numbers on the cards–rather than crave sellers to post in their plastic gift cards before getting payment. Scammers sometimes try to sell their codes for greenbacks, then quickly utilize the cards later on the company confirms the balance and accepts the card. In some cases, the reseller volition discover the fraud. In other cases, the person buying the disbelieve gift card is the 1 who figures it out.

Red FLAG: If you purchase a disbelieve gift card and find the rest is less than expected, it could be a scam.

WHAT TO Practice: Just buy discount gift cards from resellers that provide a guarantee. While you may be able to go a bigger discount on a gift carte sold via an individual using an online auction site or a "friend of a friend," yous also run the risk of losing your coin entirely if the seller has nefarious plans in place.

8. Fake Souvenir Menu Activation

HOW THE SCAM WORKS: When you lot receive a gift menu that needs to be activated, there is mostly an activation website accost and telephone number listed on the back of the menu and maybe on a sticker across the front also. Before you lot can use the gift carte, you have to go to the activation website and enter the gift bill of fare number, expiration date, and carte du jour verification lawmaking (CVC). Gift card scammers create fake websites with similar web addresses in hopes that victims will land on these fraud sites instead of the existent activation site. In addition to catching people who simply mistype the spider web address, they lure others to the fraud sites by bidding on the activation site keywords to ensure the fraud websites appear at the top of search engine results.

When someone enters their card information into the faux website, scammers take the carte data, actuate it themselves on the correct website and drain the value of the gift cards.

RED FLAG: While it may be difficult to observe a fraudulent activation site only by looking at information technology, most practice have a less professional advent than the real site. Additionally, you lot may find misspellings and references to legitimate gift bill of fare issuers, but the nigh telling clue is that the website accost at the acme of the page does non match the address listed on the card.

WHAT TO Practice: This scam only works if y'all search for the activation site instead of typing it in yourself. Yes, I know information technology'southward a pain to type the website accost, but it's the only way to guarantee landing on the correct site. If the impress on the back of the gift card is as well modest to read, get a magnifying drinking glass or utilize your mobile device to enlarge the impress. You can also telephone call the phone number instead of using the online activation. One time you lot notice the right site, you can bookmark information technology for hereafter gift card balance checks.

Read this weblog post if you lot have a souvenir bill of fare from the Existent MyPrepaidCenter.com.

SCAM ALERT ON FACEBOOK

Important Consumer Warning: Nosotros are aware of a small group of individuals claiming to be affiliated with Giftcards.com on Facebook. These individuals have been reaching out to Facebook users to say that they take been approved to have boosted funds added to their Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) card and ask the user for their credit carte information.

These individuals are not associated with Giftcards.com. Please remember that Giftcards.com will never use unsolicited email, text messages or whatsoever social media to discuss your account or ask for personal information. If you are contacted by them, practise non provide any personal information. You may file a complaint using the FTC Complaint Assistant; choose Scams and Rip-offs >> Imposter Scams

Whom to Contact If Y'all Recall You are Being Scammed

If you retrieve yous are existence scammed, the all-time thing to exercise is contact your local government and/or reach out directly to the company the potential scammer professes to represent. Do not apply phone numbers given to you lot from potential fraudsters, simply hang upwardly and get the number yourself. For example, if someone calls from "your banking company" (fifty-fifty if the caller identification appears to be legitimate), hang upwardly and call your banking concern straight using the telephone number on your account statements. The same is truthful for emails. If you see anything amiss (misspellings in the the words, close-but-non-exact email addresses and anything else suspicious), just delete the email. If you want to be certain it is bogus, call the company directly–again, not the telephone number listed in the electronic mail.

Here are two places you can check to come across if you are involved in a potential scam: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Consumer Alerts and the The Federal Trade Commission.

And lastly, do not exist afraid or embarrassed. Scammers are hoping to make yous feel this way so yous will not ask other people for assistance. Do non fall for it. These people are very skilful at what they do (unfortunately), but in that location are many more skillful people in the world who are willing and wanting to help.

Small Percentage, But Still As well Much

Although gift card fraud is non welcome, gift cards cannot exist overspent so a thief can merely take the value of the card, nothing more. Nonetheless, the experience could dampen an otherwise expert political party or happy holiday. So accept the precautions above and watch the activation procedure, double-check the residue on your gift cards as presently as you lot get them and don't listen to anybody who tells you that you'll accept to pay for products or services using gift cards.

If you have whatever questions nearly gift card scams and fraud schemes, leave a annotation in the comments or reach me at @GCGirlfriend on Twitter.

Happy Gift Carding!

~Shelley Hunter, Souvenir Card Girlfriend