Hello everyone! Today we would like to remind you about the gift card scam. The holiday season has just passed and there are more and more reports regarding gift card scams, which raise concern. Therefore tellows would like to provides some details about it.
According to FTC, there are at least 2.4M reports of phone scam in 2019. Besides FTC, the tellows US website is also experiencing an increasing traffic, which suggests that the number of phone scams is rising despite the government effort. Nonetheless, let’s have a look at the gift card scam!
1. Actually, gift card scam can also be an imposter scam. According to FTC, no matter what kind of phone scammers are calling you, such as tech support, tax officer or bank clerk, they would like to scam your money right away. Money transfer used to be the most popular payment method of scammers, but gift card has been getting more and more popular.
In connection with the love-scam or similar methods, criminals call people and explain that they are in a difficult situation like abroad or in a medical incident where they cannot access money and with the help of gift cards, they can boost their account for a while ad stay above water. They usually ask for the code printed on the coupon. Once the coupon is bought and active, they can redeem it instantly and the card itself is useless anymore. The transaction cannot be restored. Gift cards are hard for the police to trace, and therefore criminals get away more easily.
2. Other types of gift card scam including:
2.1 The scammers claim they are from the power or water company, and threaten to cut off the power or water if you don’t pay them with gift card.
2.2 The scammers pretend to be sellers on online auction sites who ask for gift cards to “buy” big items like cars, motorcycles, boats, RVs, tractors and electronics.
2.3 The scammers inform you won a lottery or prize which doesn’t exist, however, you have to pay them the transaction fee with gift card first.
3. For Businesses, there is also a type of scam which claims to purchase your product and demand payment by gift card.
Stay away from the Gift Card Scam
Please report to tellows.com if you come across any phone scam! We are a big community and your rating can help the others falling victim to the phone scammers.
You are also advised to report the phone scam to FTC. If you want to know more about gift card scams or suspect yourself have already fell victim to the gift card scam, here is a list of popular gift card companies shared by FTC:
Amazon
Call: 1 (888) 280-4331 or Report online.
Google Play
Call 1 (855) 466-4438 or Report gift card scams online.
iTunes
Call Apple Support at 1-800-275-2273 (say “gift card” to be connected to a live representative) or report and learn more online.
Steam
If you have a Steam account, you can report gift card scams online.
MoneyPak
Call 1 (866) 795-7969 or Report a MoneyPak card scam online.
tellows always wants to help you stay away form the spam calls! Let us know your thoughts and try the tellows app which support both Android and iOS systems. Also the tellows app FAQ page offers detailed information of the app! We hope you enjoy the article and have a nice day!
Your tellows team
