topic Re: Gift card scam? in Personal Finance

Gift card scam?

Save-n-Invest — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 01:49:36 GMT

A few minutes ago I received email from a know email addy who claimed to have an immediate need for an iTunes gift card. Said it was neice's birthday. Was traveling and will reimburse me when they return home. I sent the link from apple.com for gift cards. Person asked me to buy three $100 gift cards and send pic of the pins. Seemed too weird. I emailed the link and no further communitaction.

I checked Apple's site and saw is warning. I had no plans to advance gift card funds to anyone. The email was weird in too many ways.

https://support.apple.com/itunes-gift-card-scams

Re: Gift card scam?

iv — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 01:27:10 GMT

Yep. Common type of scam.

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 05:04:47 GMT

I don't understand the scam though. Why would anyone buy someone they don't know 3 "100$" Itune gift cards? I mean does this scam really work???? It sounds silly!

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 05:15:04 GMT

Oh man... wish I had read this yesterday.

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 15:32:00 GMT

UH OH!!! 😲 How many iTunes cards did they get you for? Did you at least keep 1 for yourself?

Re: Gift card scam?

DaveInAZ — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 15:53:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Oh man... wish I had read this yesterday.

Yesterday was actually my lucky day, I got an email from a Nigerian Prince who wants to give me a million bucks just for helping him get his money to the U.S., all I had to do was give him my bank account & routing numbers . . . .

/snark

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 16:04:35 GMT

Lol!! He's not asking for much! You should have helped a man out!

Re: Gift card scam?

Save-n-Invest — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 16:09:00 GMT

No, I didn't purchase iTunes gift cards for anyone not even myself. The sender's email was hacked. It was a known addy belonging to a responsible person who could easily swing a $300 purchase on her own. The emails persisted for a few days. The entire deal seemed weird from the jump.

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 17:02:05 GMT

@DaveInAZ wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Oh man... wish I had read this yesterday.
Yesterday was actually my lucky day, I got an email from a Nigerian Prince who wants to give me a million bucks just for helping him get his money to the U.S., all I had to do was give him my bank account & routing numbers . . . .

/snark

Sounds like a great deal as long as there is no HP.

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 19:57:37 GMT

Do you think ppl really fall for these type of scams though??? I mean they are so ridiculous, I hope there is really no one out there who honestly believes it.

Re: Gift card scam?

iv — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 20:42:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Do you think ppl really fall for these type of scams though??? I mean they are so ridiculous, I hope there is really no one out there who honestly believes it.

Yes... sadly. People do fall for them every day. I see it (and help clean up the mess) regularly. Many of them still keep on believing that at least some part of the scam... wasn't really a scam. (Even after losing their money.)

And being "obvious" and "ridiculous" is a feature, not a bug - it keeps the scammers from wasting time on people who might interact with them for a while, but not end up actually sending money. People who fall for an "obvious" first email are the ones most likely to fall "all the way" and send cash...

Read the MS Research paper on it, if the details interest you:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf

Re: Gift card scam?

DaveInAZ — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 21:16:02 GMT

@iv wrote:
Yes... sadly. People do fall for them every day. I see it (and help clean up the mess) regularly. Many of them still keep on believing that at least some part of the scam... wasn't really a scam. (Even after losing their money.)

And being "obvious" and "ridiculous" is a feature, not a bug - it keeps the scammers from wasting time on people who might interact with them for a while, but not end up actually sending money. People who fall for an "obvious" first email are the ones most likely to fall "all the way" and send cash...

Well yes, but the percentage who fall for the scams is quite low, it's just that email & phone calls over the internet cost almost nothing so they send out hundreds of thousands of them. My email from my internet provider got on spammers list a few years back, so I'd got a bunch of con artist offers until I shut it down. But the robocalls to my cell phone are the most annoying. "Rachael from card services" claiming they can lower you interest rate is a classic. I figured they were just trying to get people to give them their CC #, so one time when I was bored I pressed 1 to speak to a rep. He offered 2 years at 0%, so I said Great! Then he asks for my CC#, and I tell him that if he's from my CC company he surely has my number. "Of course" he assures me, "I just need to verify it". No problem I tell him, "you give me the # and I'll confirm it for you". He hung up.

The folks who fall for it tend to be the most vulnerable, the elderly and low education low income. Just remember the old saying: "If it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't (true)".

Re: Gift card scam?

iv — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 23:11:44 GMT

@DaveInAZ wrote:
The folks who fall for it tend to be the most vulnerable, the elderly and low education low income.

Yeah, You'd think that...

But in my (fairly extensive) experience with people who fell (or almost fell) for this, the elderly, low education, and low income folks are far more likely to have a "yeah, right - pull the other one" reaction to these scams (or at least mention it to someone before acting).

The average profile I've dealt with of someone falling for these is:

40s to early 60s
At least a BA degree (and plenty of MA/MS - a couple of PhDs and EdDs, too)
Earning in the $50k-$90k range
"Professional"-type employment, including accountants and bookkeepers!

In general, it's the people who think they know enough (but don't) not to fall for a scam, who don't bother checking with someone else before getting sucked in. People who are a little bit less certain of themselves tend to ask a friend or coworker first, and thus have a second chance to avoid the trap.

Re: Gift card scam?

rcsoco — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 05:26:24 GMT

wouldnt you call that someone and ask them whats going on??? people are so gullible

Re: Gift card scam?

Kree — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 20:01:47 GMT

Its often a timing thing.

A coworker of mine had spent 2 years living in Germany. Had been back in the country for 2 weeks, and he got the "Back taxes, police warrant being issued, better pay now." He honestly believed that there might have been a mistake when he was gone. Fortunately he did not fall for it, but I remember hearing the first panicked 5 minutes.

Happened to me last week. I had a business AMEX being shipped to me, and it was arriving late. The form my company used to apply for it, didn't fit my entire address so I had to abbreviate it. Then I get an email from "UPS" about needing to verify my address. So I clicked on it before noticing the non UPS webaddress. I honestly thought that it was in reference to my AMEX. Didn''t quite fall for it, but even clicking unknown links can be dangerous.

Re: Gift card scam?

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 21:24:16 GMT

I fell for a water filter pyramid when I was in college. A lot of these scams plays on one of the worst human traits, greed.

Re: Gift card scam?

fuzzle — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:25:33 GMT

If Apple really cared they'd just stop selling gift cards. There is no legitimate reason to create a store currency

Re: Gift card scam?

LunaBuna — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 03:10:03 GMT

There is a actually a huge reason for gift cards. Think of how many gift cards end up with a very small balance on them that never get used, or the cards themsleves get lost. I would love to see the value of that to a company the size of Apple.

Re: Gift card scam?

Kree — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 20:30:52 GMT

@LunaBuna wrote:
There is a actually a huge reason for gift cards. Think of how many gift cards end up with a very small balance on them that never get used, or the cards themsleves get lost. I would love to see the value of that to a company the size of Apple.

I remember back in the day when giftcards used to expire too. That was the worst.

Re: Gift card scam?

DaveInAZ — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 00:10:29 GMT

@LunaBuna wrote:
There is a actually a huge reason for gift cards. Think of how many gift cards end up with a very small balance on them that never get used, or the cards themsleves get lost. I would love to see the value of that to a company the size of Apple.

That ^^^^^ is why retailers love gift cards, many never get redeemed for their full value, and because it's hard to use them down to a zero balance is why I never buy them. The last time I had something like that was a pre-paid Visa debit card Hertz car sales gave me when they couldn't find the second key for the used rental car I bought. To use the full value I had to go inside gas stations to put an exact amount of gas on the pump. I much prefer to swipe a card at the pump, fill the tank, and be one my way, but I got that card down to the last penny.