Former police officer warns of scams involving tampered gift cards at retailers
CTV
A former police officer is urging Canadians to be vigilant this holiday season when buying gift cards on display at retail stores, after almost falling victim to a scam involving tampered gift cards --- twice.
A former police officer is urging Canadians to be vigilant this holiday season when buying gift cards on display at retail stores, after almost falling victim to a scam involving tampered gift cards --- twice.
In late October, Toronto-based fitness and public safety influencer Nichelle Laus tried to buy a $50 Winners gift card at her local Shoppers Drug Mart. But when the cashier scanned the barcode on the gift card, it showed up on the system as an Esso gas gift card.
"The cashier --- she did a really good job," Laus told CTVNews.ca over the phone on Wednesday. "She told me about the scam and she was feeling the back of it and she goes, 'Look, this one is fake.' I said, 'No way!'"
Upon closer inspection of the card, Laus noticed that the texture of the barcode appeared raised. It turned out that there was a fake barcode in the form of a sticker covering the gift card's real barcode. The fake barcode corresponded to an Esso gift card, and if the transaction had gone through, Laus would've paid money to load a scammer's Esso card and been left with an empty Winners card.
"You can see it's a white sticker. It looks like it was almost like laser printed. Like, it's really good quality. It's cut so precisely that you can literally lay it over the original barcode on top and you wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you really look at it and unless you really feel it," she explained.
After this experience, Laus said, she began the practice of running her fingers over the barcode whenever she's buying a gift card at a retailer in order to make sure there are no stickers on the card. And this weekend, she encountered yet another tampered-with gift card at a different Shoppers Drug Mart location.
"I was buying a PlayStation card for my boys' friend's birthday party. And the first one I picked up, I did the same thing. I felt the back and sure enough, it was fake," she said.
