Scammers love a gift card. They love it as a form of payment and as the centerpiece of their scams. For starters, we can see why scammers take them for payment. They’re easy for victims to purchase and they’re practically as good as cash in many ways. And they’re tough to refund. They simply don’t have the same consumer protections that credit and debit cards enjoy. Altogether, this makes gift cards highly attractive to scammers. So when it comes time to press people for money, scammers often request payment in gift cards. It’s one way they can make a clean getaway. Gift card scams take several forms, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These include scammers pretending:

  • They’re from the government. Often, they’ll pose as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and say you need to pay taxes or a fine. But government agencies won’t contact you to demand immediate payment, and they never demand payment by gift card.
  • They’re a friend or family member with an emergency. AI voice cloning tools have made these scams trickier than ever. They’ll call or leave messages pretending to be someone you know in distress — like their car broke down in the middle of nowhere or they need bail money. If they ask for payment in gift cards, it’s a scam. Go ahead and contact the friend or relative another way to check that everything is all right.
  • You’ve won a prize. Phony sweepstakes are another way scammers pull off gift card scams. Sure, you “won” a prize, but to collect it you have to pay some miscellaneous fees or charges with a gift card. Sure enough, that’s a scam too.
  • They’re from your utility company. This one works a lot like the bogus IRS call. The scammer threatens to cut off your service if you don’t pay immediately with a gift card. No utility company will ask you to pay that way, and they certainly won’t bully you out of the blue like that.
  • To ask for gift cards after they chat you up on a dating website. We’ve covered romance scams plenty here in our blogs. Here, scammers string their victims along and eventually ask for money. They’ll say it’s for all kinds of things, like for a flight to come visit, to cover some sort of medical expense, or to help them out between jobs.

Other forms of gift card scams

In addition to all kinds of payment scams, crooks have come up with other ways to make money off gift cards.

Bogus balance-checking sites

These sites promise to check the balance on gift cards. However, they’re phishing sites. Entering card info into these sites gives scammers everything they need to steal the card balance for themselves. Where do these sites crop up? Often in search, sometimes paid search where scammers pay for prime search placement. Like any other phishing site, the URL is usually tampered with in some way. For example, a search on the retailer Target might return a result for a bogus balance-checking site spelled as “Targetscoupon” and have one of the more obscure domain names after it, like .ga, .tk, .ml, .shop, or .buzz. Once on the site, you’re presented with a place to enter the card number and PIN, which gives scammers everything they need to drain a card of its funds.

Gift card tampering

This involves draining gift cards of funds after they’re purchased. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cites examples of crime rackets that steal inactivated cards from stores and then restock them on shelves — only after they’ve scanned the barcodes and PINs. When a victim purchases and activates the card, the crooks drain the funds and leave the victim with an empty card. Per the DHS, signs of possible gift card tampering include:

  1. Visibly clear tears in the zigzag cuts around the perimeter of the secure pack or visible paper fibers around the borders where a sharp knife may have cut through an edge.
  2. Visibly clear tears or exposed nicks along the pull tab or a pull tab that has been compromised or cut with a knife and then laid back down. A slight bend back and forth can show if this has occurred.
  3. Product and brand logos, colors, or marks that closely resemble, but do not match a company’s intellectual property.
  4. The PIN cover has pieces missing, is fully missing, is not flat, smooth, or has wrinkles.
  5. The product’s packaging or PIN covering deviates from the company’s standard gift card packaging. Compare the packaging and PIN to others on the shelf.
  6. There may be no physical signs of tampering, but the balance does not match what you bought.

Survey and giveaway scams

Here scammers lure in victims with the promise of gift cards from big brands and major retailers. In the survey version of the scam, victims get asked to answer a few questions to earn their gift card. Once done, the scam site prompts victims to enter a valid credit or debit card for a “handling fee” or some other phony reason. The scammers get the card info and start spending. The giveaway scam works in a similar way. Scammers also promise the offer of a gift card. And once again, victims must enter a valid credit or debit card to claim it. The result is the same — a compromised card.

How to avoid gift card scams

Bottom line, if anyone, anywhere, asks you to pay for goods, services, or debts of any kind with a gift card, it’s a scam. It’s as simple as that. In addition:

1. Remember that gift cards are for gifts, never for payments

This reinforces the advice above. The crooks who run gift card scams pose as utility companies, the government, lottery officials, tech support from big-name companies, even family members — just about anyone. Yet what all these scams have in common is urgency. Scammers use high-pressure tactics to trick victims into paying with gift cards. And paying quickly.

2. Snap a pic of your gift card and receipt

Take a picture of the gift card and store receipt with your phone. The number on the gift card and store receipt will help you file a report with the gift card company if you lose the gift card or if you need to report fraud.

3. Purchase online gift cards from reputable retailers

One way you can avoid the tampering scenario we talked about above is to pick up online gift cards. Several reputable retailers and brands offer them.

4. Check your balance at the retailer or with their official app

Both can tell you what your card balance is, securely and accurately. Avoid any third-party site online that offers to check your balance for you. It could be a scam.

5. Block bad links to phishing sites and bogus balance-checking sites

A combination of our Web Protection and Text Scam Detector can steer you clear of these phishing sites. They’ll alert you if a link might take you to one — and block them too if you accidentally tap or click on a bad link.