Can Gift Cards be fraudulent?
 

gift card/certificate that i am going to buy is for a big amount. is there anyway to find out if it was bought with a stolen credit card or any other kind of fraud? how to protect myself and can i get in trouble if later it turns out to be a stolen giftcard or was bought with a stolen/fraud credit or debit card? thanks

only way to find it out is to buy u gift card from the store youself

If your buying it online privately from a seller then you are taking a risk. If you are getting too good of a deal (example, pay $200 for a $500) then that is a sign it could be fake.

Maybe ask for the card number to see if you can phone in and check the balance.

No, I don't think you can verify whether it was purchased with a stolen credit card. They only find out later, and if they do, they will cancel the gift card, and you'll be screwed.

If you want to be safe, I think either you meet the person selling the gift card at the store and use the card right away to make the purchase. Even if the gift card was purchased with a stolen credit card, I don't think there's anything the store can do to make you give back your merchandise... they probably wouldn't even know who you were.

Or... you can get all of the seller's information like driver's license and stuff to make sure you can find him if something goes wrong with the gift card later...

Meet them in a store, with a purchase in mind. Use the card in front of them.

I do it all the time. ~15% off store purchases. Not a bad deal :)

what he said. my uncle did this by asking the teller that he needed to check the balance on the card to see if he could afford to make a "purchase" he had in mind.

what if it turned out to be fraudulent later on but i used it in store just fine. can the police charge me as they would have me on video using that card?

:werd:

u never worry its fraudulent and they have u on camera using it? or do u only do small amounts?

The only for sure way to make sure you don't get ripped off is to have the seller of the gift card there when you make your purchase like another member mentioned. You could also purchase your item before hand and then meet the seller and have your purchase refunded and put onto the gift card instead. I've done this at Future Shop before.

They are not gonna go that far, u would be surprised about the amount of credit card fraud that happens. If u do happen to buy a gift card that was purchased with a stolen credit card and if they find out they will just try to take the money off the card and if its spent then thats just the cost of doing business. They get bigger and better fish to fry wen it comes to credit card fraud.

I would get the guy to meet u at the store and use the whole card while hes there just to be %100 that ur getting ur money. BUT then u also have to think mayb buddy is just gonna meet u somewhere, smash u in the face multplie times and take this large amount of cash from u. So if its more then a few hundred dollars ide suggest bringing a friend or pepperspray and meet him in a store wit lots of ppl in it. Some may say this is overkill but there is sum bad ppl out there......

yeah, just meet up at the store and have the cashier check the balance.

Problem with checking balance, is that it may be valid at the time of purchase, till the fake CC kicks in, gets flagged, and then bam, not good anymore.This is kind of dumb, considering it's not supposed to affect the consumer in any way.

Not likely?

Can't you meet the guy at the store and use the gift card to buy another gift card??

i guess i could but it would still be linked up to the original card i would think and it could also be cancelled if found to be fraud