The non profit company I work for donated quite a bit of money to help community families in need (over 15k) in 2022 and as part of the gifts that were purchased, visa gift cards were part of the items purchased. They were purchased at drug stores and supermarkets by some of our leaders who were on the gift committee. We became aware of this even before Christmas, as many of the families received their gift bundles a week or so before.

Our only recourse was to file fraud claims with Vanilla gift. None of the compromised cards were ever recovered. I’d say we lost well over 10k Worth of these.

Have you been defrauded by a drained gift card? I won’t buy them anymore unless I can send a direct gift card link via email to someone, like Starbucks and Target offer.

Anything with a Visa/Mastercard logo sucks. I only use American Express cards for this reason, OP. Sorry you had to go through all that.

OP you left out an important part of the story. "Our only recourse" - only recourse to what? You didn't tell what happened??

R2 Vaniila gift didn’t repay any of the fraud claims that were filed. Not a one. This is probably why they’re getting sued.

r3 I'm asking - what was the scam? You went from "we purchased them." To "our only recourse..." - what happened in between? the recipient tried to use it and it was blank?

R4 yes. There was no visible evidence of tampering with the cards. The packaging was intact and nothing was scraped off. Nothing torn. It had to have been done with a card cloning device in store, at the corporate level by the issuer, or in transit. Someone stole the data while it was still sitting there in the packaging. I was on the committee and saw all of them.

The gift recipients went to use them and found either they had no funds or were already registered to someone else. It was very sad. The families did receive other items with their bundle but it made us look pretty bad.

Yeah, OP, just fyi it's better if you explain the scam instead of making me have to read the article (before you explained it).

OP, bless your heart.

I can barely decipher this. In your story, you go from buying the gift cards to seeking recourse. You're leaving out some important details. I'm with r4. This isn't making much sense. And what is Vanilla?

If this is an EST, your score is -100/0.

I thought I was the only one not comprehending the OP's stupid story.

How do you leave out such a MAJOR part of story, and the idea you're trying to convey?

OP you're an awful story teller, which shows that you severely lack critical thinking skills.

R8 I did explain above at R6. My story would have made more sense if some of you looked at the article, but I guess that’s asking too much.

The point isn’t really our company’s story, more of PSA about these scams, in case people aren’t aware.

My brother gave me a $100 vanilla card for my birthday in Oct. He bought it at a CVS. I don’t know how the scam went down but when I went online to check the balance it was at $0 and I hadn’t used it yet.

I called to complain and they basically told me they could try and investigate but I would have to fill out a form and send them the front and back of my state photo ID. Oh fuck THAT. Not giving strangers that type of info. I just dropped it at that point, and I haven’t had the heart to tell my brother he wasted a hundred bucks so a stranger could shop (it was spent at a Nordstrom’s, that’s all I could find out.)

Bottom line, I don’t trust gift cards anymore.

one scam is that they'll open gift cards, write the codes down, then repackage them back onto the shelf. then they just wait and watch for it to get loaded and use it online immediately.

I don't know how the cards are used without the codes hidden under a scratch off

I will start gifting e gift cards

I just got one of these Vanilla Visa cards as a Christmas gift.

R15 Spend it immediately if you can

I received a $500 Amex gift card from my employer for Christmas. After activating it was declined by every online merchant I attempted. I called Amex customer service and they were no help at all, and eventually hung up on me. I eventually was able to use it by loading it into my Apple wallet, and then using Apple Pay. It was extremely annoying, but at least I was able to use the card.

R10 / OP "if some of you looked at the article, but I guess that’s asking too much. "

OP, YOU do the work of your own post. We are here to make snide comments, not decipher and spend time trying to figure out your 1/2 told stories, you lazy m.f. And you pull this shit on Christmas, too, huh?

OP, I hope you’re not on the non-profit’s grant request writing committee. If you are, I hope they switch to using AI.

[quote] I won’t buy them anymore unless I can send a direct gift card link via email to someone, like Starbucks and Target offer.

It's weird that people are still buying physical gift cards at stores off a rack. I wouldn't.

R20 And yet they sell, in spite of you.

R17 that’s because the Amex gc want associated with a name and address. Some retailers attempt to mine data from every customer swipe for marketing reasons, etc. it’s common. When you swipe an Amex gc it doesn’t contain that info. Your shipping address doesn’t suffice. Other retailer system readers do not require it, thus it will work there. Adding it to wallet is smart.

An aunt sent me gift cards sealed in the plastic. No problems using. I prefer to gift and receive giftcards

On a whim I looked up whether using a credit card to buy a gift card constitutes a cash advance with associated penalties. The answer was sometimes — it depends.

Next time just fork over the cash.

I just used the Vanilla Visa I got for Christmas from a coworker for $25. It worked fine.

Sigh

Not [italic] every [/italic]Vanilla gift card buyer is going to get scammed.

OP clearly has a drinking problem, and can't tell a story right.

He probably had a few too many before he bought Visa gift cards at the Piggly Wiggly, and screwed it up somehow. And now it's a "scam."

[quote] My story would have made more sense if some of you looked at the article, but I guess that’s asking too much

You were telling YOUR story, OP. Not the story in the article.

A few months ago my husband and I were in target and we walked over to the gift card section. I wanted to buy a visa or American Express gift card. All of a sudden I hear this booming voice, “Can I help you?” and there’s this middle aged white guy wearing a not-Target-red-shirt, but had a million keys hooked to his belt. He looked Iike a security manager and I was about to make a snide remark like, “Do I look like my name is Karen?” but the guy was very serious…I’m used to retarded Gen Zs working in Target, trying not to nod off because they’re all high af.

He was pretty scary. I felt like he found me doing something wrong. “We don’t sell Visa or American Express!”

A few days later I found out Target gift cards are a big…well, a big target for the gift card scam. The guy must’ve been watching the gift card section on a security camera.

Are you in California, OP?

R32 yes I am. It doesn't seem like a lot of the public knows about the scams.

I apologize for my ineptitude in explaining this.

This apparently happened with Target cards too.

r33 " I apologize for my ineptitude in explaining this. "

You've paid the price, and hopefully learned your lesson, you filthy animal.

Damn, some people are bold. No wonder r31 experienced that

[QUOTE]Suspect was caught 'acting suspiciously' near gift cards in Target store. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office said that Sun was seen acting suspiciously near the gift cards in the payment aisles in a Sacramento Target store before his arrest.

[QUOTE]"Detectives observed him placing all the gift cards on a rack inside his jacket, then replacing the gift cards with another set of seemingly identical ones," said the sheriff's office. Sun was confronted while trying to exit the store with the stolen gift cards.

[quote] I apologize for my ineptitude in explaining this.

Too bloody late.

that is disappointing for the families who received the tampered gift card and maybe needed that extra cash

What is vanilla? Don’t visa & American Express sell their own cards?

Almost every gift card (Visa, MasterCard, or AmEx), I have received has been a pain in the ass.

I understand why companies like to award them to employees, and why individuals like to give the recipient the option of buying a gift to suit their personal tastes, but they are still a pain in the ass. I had stacks of them from work; they were given out like candy in lieu of raising salaries, but they were difficult to be rid of. I kept Post-It notes on them relative the balances, kept them organized by expiry date, carried a stack of them at hand because different stores accepted only certain cards, and still ended up with a big stack that I finally, when moving from the U.S., sold (to umpteen vendors, of course) for a fraction of the balance value.

r39 it means the gift card is not into spanking, blindfolds, or role play.

[quote] that is disappointing for the families who received the tampered gift card and maybe needed that extra cash

If people want to give cash, they should send cash electronically and skip the gift card. If they really want to give a gift card, they should buy a digital one and print it and hand that to the recipient.

I used to give money orders. But money orders are a real pain to use.

R39, Vanilla means no anal.

I still don’t understand how this scam works. Why does card have to be returned to store and used by someone? How does thief know when the card has been activated by person who bought it?

[quote] Why does card have to be returned to store and used by someone? How does thief know when the card has been activated by person who bought it?

How is babby formed?

R27 I don’t know what you’re sighing for. I had posted earlier that I got a Visa Vanilla gift card, and in my next post I was letting people know it worked fine. I wasn’t trying to dispute that there was a scam.

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