Im suprised he doesnt talk about the other end of gift card fraud, where the fraudster is the one selling the gift card. In IT, I see a lot of scams. A suprsing amount of malicious email is not...
One potential answer is fraudsters, but that is obviously unsatisfactory. A marketplace which doesn’t stay ahead of fraudsters will find itself turned into a money pump, as it pays real money for gift cards, gets paid with stolen credit cards by fraudsters, and then has those purchases reversed by the banks of the defrauded individuals. It’s obvious that a marketplace which doesn’t solve this problem will close doors in a matter of weeks, and indeed fraud management is one of the largest technical and operational concerns of gift card marketplaces.
Im suprised he doesnt talk about the other end of gift card fraud, where the fraudster is the one selling the gift card. In IT, I see a lot of scams. A suprsing amount of malicious email is not just phishing, but scamming as well. They will often, under the claim of authority (impersonating the company ceo, claiming that they have unpaid fines they must immediately pay, etc) instruct the user to buy a medium amount of gift cards (1 to 3 digits, any more and they tend to instruct the user to buy cryptocurrency) and reply to the email with all the codes to the gift cards.
And these things work, too. I remember when I worked at a small computer repair shop, I got a call from a lady who had been persuaded that she owed the DMV a $200 fine, and was instructed to pay it in the form of gift cards (I dont remember the type, sorry). Of course, much to her dismay, there was nothing our little computer shop could do to get her money back, and they hadnt installed anything on her laptop.
I would be very suprised if these selling fraudsters were not a significant portion of the gift card supply.
I’m wondering if the computer shop suggested using the gift card numbers to buy something? Maybe it was too late. It seems like anti-fraud for a gift card marketplace would be a matter of...
I’m wondering if the computer shop suggested using the gift card numbers to buy something? Maybe it was too late.
It seems like anti-fraud for a gift card marketplace would be a matter of statistics, much like shoplifting. Some “shrinkage” would be okay, but too much and they shut down.
This article is interesting if you ever wondered why people people buy and sell gift cards.
This article is interesting if you ever wondered why people people buy and sell gift cards.
Home Depot is an interesting case. Many builders and contractors in the U.S. will purchase inputs to their trade, such as e.g. lumber or plumbing fixtures or similar, from Home Depot at retail prices. They might need thousands of dollars of material to do a job, and they might have an agreement with their customer (the client or the general contractor) that they invoice for “time and materials”, with inputs being reimbursed at cost or cost plus a small margin. They may need to show receipts.
Home Depot accepts Home Depot gift cards at par, and will print this on receipts. If you buy $1,000 worth of lumber, you get a receipt saying that you bought $1,000 worth of lumber. If you actually paid $940 for the gift cards that you made the purchase with, you conjure $60 of margin (worth perhaps an hour of your labor) for a few minutes of playing the gift card game.
And if you ever buy $1,000 of lumber… you probably buy an awful lot of lumber over the course of a year.
Im suprised he doesnt talk about the other end of gift card fraud, where the fraudster is the one selling the gift card. In IT, I see a lot of scams. A suprsing amount of malicious email is not just phishing, but scamming as well. They will often, under the claim of authority (impersonating the company ceo, claiming that they have unpaid fines they must immediately pay, etc) instruct the user to buy a medium amount of gift cards (1 to 3 digits, any more and they tend to instruct the user to buy cryptocurrency) and reply to the email with all the codes to the gift cards.
And these things work, too. I remember when I worked at a small computer repair shop, I got a call from a lady who had been persuaded that she owed the DMV a $200 fine, and was instructed to pay it in the form of gift cards (I dont remember the type, sorry). Of course, much to her dismay, there was nothing our little computer shop could do to get her money back, and they hadnt installed anything on her laptop.
I would be very suprised if these selling fraudsters were not a significant portion of the gift card supply.
I’m wondering if the computer shop suggested using the gift card numbers to buy something? Maybe it was too late.
It seems like anti-fraud for a gift card marketplace would be a matter of statistics, much like shoplifting. Some “shrinkage” would be okay, but too much and they shut down.
This article is interesting if you ever wondered why people people buy and sell gift cards.