Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Gift Card Purchases

I got this warning via email and verified that it is true on snopes.com:

Well the crooks have found a way to rob you of your gift card balance. If you buy Gift Cards from a display rack that has various store cards you may become a victim of theft. Crooks are now jotting down the card numbers in the store and then wait a few days and call to see how much
of a balance THEY have on the card. Once they find the card is "activated", and then they go online and start shopping. You may want to purchase your card from a customer service person, where they do not have the Gift Cards viewable to the public. Please share this with all your family and friends...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just read an article about crooks stealing health insurance cards from purses. they then pay for expensive treatments and the medical records have your name on them. that is supposed to be very difficult to correct.

gimlet said...

Sneaky!

This is another example of why it's not a good idea to use a process that requires weak authentication for transactions. Ie, the system trusts you, as long as you have a valid number (kind of like credit cards, but that's another rant).