Christmas Season is here....beware

As Christmas is approaching everyone is shopping more and more, the more you are out there shopping the more you expose yourself to scams.  Of those scams that are out there is one you may never even know have happened.  Mainly because those that you are giving presents may be too polite to let you know the truth.  The truth is that you may give someone a gift, even in person, and they may never receive a thing.

One of the most popular things to do in this season, and easiest, is to buy a friend or family member a gift card.  Most of these gift cards can be redeemed online by their recipients because they have a code on the back that you can use at the appropriate website; however, there are many retail stores that don't protect these cards from the prying eyes of crooks.

The old scam was that a criminal would, in the times before cell phones, hang out at airports and steal phone card numbers from unsuspecting travelers.  Then sell that information to someone that would want to make cheap phone calls.  The evolution of the scam has changed only slightly.  When gift cards are placed in areas of a store that are open to the public it gives criminals a chance to observe them, record their numbers on the back, and store them for later.  As time goes by that same criminal goes online and checks to see when a balance is made available on the card numbers that they have.

Many people will buy gift cards 1-2 weeks prior to giving them to someone.  The person that receives them will wait as least as long to use the cards.  Which means that a month could go by before anyone realizes that a crook has used the card first.  A lot of people will not even mention the loss because they just don't want to embarass or worry the person that gave them the present.  In order to prevent this from happening please be aware of where the gift cards are located before you are buying.  Only buy cards that are behind the register and only accesible by employees or cards whose numbers are securely hidden and have not been tampered with at all.  If you happen to be at a store that has gift cards that could easily be compromised let the managment know.  Chances are that they did not know about the scam and they will be willing to protect their customers.  Most customers looking for gift cards go straight to the registers anyway.  So, it would not hurt them to move the gift cards to a secure location.