The gift card scam that keeps on giving

My boomer relatives keep sending me prepaid gift cards without any money on them. These cards, typically adorned with a Visa logo, loaded with money — $50, $100, $500 — and displayed prominently in pharmacies and supermarkets, are meant to be spent anywhere that accepts debit cards. The problem is fraudsters have figured out how to spend them first.

In January, I attempted to spend a $100 Visa Vanilla Gift card my uncle in-law from Colorado had sent my family for Christmas.

After infuriatingly trying to use it at three separate places, I learned someone else already had. The gift card had recently been emptied at a Walmart in Ontario, while I, a sucker, had been living my life in New York. I filed a claim with InComm Payments, the private company that sells these cards, and was told that I’d have to send documentation, including a receipt for the gift card. Obviously, since it was a gift, I didn’t have one. Not wanting to upset poor old Uncle Richard and figuring I’d wasted enough time with this, I moved on.

Last month, my aunt sent my son another Visa Vanilla Gift card. This time it was for $50 and had been spent at a CVS on Long Island before it was even mailed to me, in a process known as “draining.” It’s a widespread issue that typically goes like this: Fraudsters open up the gift card wrapping, copy the codes, seal them back up, then monitor them online until they’re purchased, at which point they spend the money — either online or through mobile wallets in stores — before you do.

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