A GIFT card holder has revealed how their $350 balance was wiped by a cunning scammer.
A seemingly-innocent phone call was all it took to steal the money.
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A Reddit user has revealed how they lost $350 when trying to sell their REI gift cards online.
"I was in need of some extra cash, and had three gift cards to REI (total value $350) that I posted online to sell for $250 cash," they wrote.
The Redditor received an email from an interested buyer via Craigslist.
"He insisted that I conference call REI, with him on the phone, so he can hear the automated system tell me the price for all three gift cards," the story continued.
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After the prices had been confirmed, the plan was to exchange the gift cards in person for cash.
But they would never meet up, because the balances of the three gift cards were all entirely wiped by the time they got off the phone.
Scammers are able to use sophisticated technology to steal gift card numbers during the a call.
They can record the call and listen back to the dial tones made when you entered the gift card number via the keypad.
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From the frequencies of the dial tones, these criminals can figure out the numbers you entered - and wipe the balance of the cards.
The Redditor revealed they had reported the scam to reportfraud.ftc.gov and REI.
‘We’re replacing your damaged card’ Chase told customer – then her account lost $14k, the bank has ‘questions to answer’However, it can be hard to get your money back if you fall victim to a gift card scam.
Gift cards are often used as a form of currency by con artists because the funds are hard to trace or retrieve.
Some scammers will ask victims to send them money in the form of gift cards using the pretense of an online romance or friendship.
The criminals will request that victims either send them a digital gift card or send a photo of the physical gift card's activation code.
Criminals can then sell these gift cards on the black market to liquidate the cash.
However, stores are becoming aware that scammers are using gift cards for illegal purposes.
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Walmart has given back $4 million to customers who have fallen victim to these shocking schemes.
And Target shoppers have been warned over "Bad Elf" gift cards.
