‘I lost like $200’: Former retail worker reveals how to avoid getting scammed by gift cards this holiday season

If you’re unsure of what to get someone for Christmas, a simple go-to might be to purchase a gift card. But in a recent TikTok, a former retail worker warned viewers against doing so.

Juniper (@juniperdivine) suggested that she’s a former Target employee. "I used to work for a huge corporation that rhymed with 'Margarets,'" Juniper said. While working there, the content creator said she witnessed several instances of gift card draining/tampering, a common scam that leaves purchasers (and the gift recipient) without anything.

“I highly urge people to not buy gift cards,” Juniper said. “It is a crazy thing.”

As an employee, Juniper said that scammers would make fraudulent gift cards, go into those stores, and mix those fake cards with the actual company’s gift cards. That meant buyers were purchasing “scam gift cards” with zero balance.

What’s worse, Juniper said that her specific Target store did little to stop this. She also said that there was a secret agreement amongst managers to not alert customers. “Literally, last year during the winter they told us, ‘Don’t let the customers know,’” Juniper said. She added, too, that if a customer accidentally picked up a fraudulent gift card, workers were instructed to quietly switch it out with a legit one.

As a result of her own experiences, Juniper said she “highly recommended” that people don’t use gift cards as gifts this year.

“There are so many online and in-person scams that it’s really hard to know fully if you’re going to get your money,” she said. As of Tuesday, her video warning against this scam had amassed more than 48,000 views.

What’s the gift card scam? 

According to Today.com, card draining refers to when thieves steal gift cards, copy or alter the card numbers, use the available funds and reseal the card, and then return the card to the sales rack with zero balance. Customers often can’t tell that a gift card has been tampered with. So by the time someone attempts to use or purchase the card, the money on it is long gone.

An AARP study from 2022 found that roughly one-quarter (23%) of U.S. consumers have purchased cards that were already drained. What’s worse, of those affected, more than half said that they were unable to recoup the funds.

These scams are quite common. According to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2022, there were roughly 49,000 instances of gift card fraud reports. This amounted to $228 million in losses.

The federal government is taking steps to combat this, though Juniper’s video suggests these scammers are still at large.

According to an April story from ProPublica, the Department of Homeland Security is looking into the potential involvement of Chinese organized crime rings. It’s believed that organizations involved in this type of theft are using the money to finance illegal activities, including drugs and human trafficking.

Companies have different rules regarding gift cards. If you don’t have the receipt or paperwork claiming you purchased a card and/or don’t report the fraud within 60 days of purchase, then you may not get your money back.

Juniper doubled down on her warning against giving cards to others this holiday season. “When you buy it, your money is already gone because people are already checking the numbers to see if there’s money on it,” she said. “So please, please be careful buying gift cards this year.”

Viewers share how they’ve been affected by thieves 

Though some outlets have already shared tips for how customers can protect themselves from scammers, this grift has apparently affected a number of TikTok users.  

In the comments of Juniper’s video, a number of viewers shared their personal horror stories.

“Yes I lost like $200 because of gift cards,” one user shared. 

“Yup this happened to me for my graduation,” another wrote. “Someone got me a $200 gift card and I tried registering it and exactly $200 was taken out of the balance.”

“This happened to me last year,” a third viewer added. “It took months to fix and get the money back.”

To avoid this, Juniper advised not buying gift cards that activate immediately. Instead, buy ones that require an employee’s sign-off or only buy gift cards merchants keep under lock and key.

“When I worked at Walgreens we would have an alert on our register if that card was ‘suspicious’ and we would get different ones,” one employee said. “We were also trained on how to check if they were fraudulent.” 

“This year I’m doing all local businesses’ gift cards,” a second viewer wrote. “Usually these are only near cash registers.”

“Yeah I just do e gift cards now because of this,” another commented. “Or gift certificates from local businesses.”

@juniperdivine Please be careful when buying giftcards. #giftcards #giftcard #holidays #holiday #gifts #christmas #scam #scammer #fraud #fakegiftcards ♬ original sound - ????Juniper????

The Daily Dot has reached out to Juniper via TikTok comment and to Target through email.

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