I got scammed for Christmas: Beware of gift card crooks using AI, other cons this holiday season
NY Post
The Grinch is having himself a scammy little Christmas — and he tried doing it on my dime.
You see, I’ve been robbed.
Thankfully, the perp wasn’t a ne’er-do-well on the subway or a stickup kid on the street.
Instead, I unwittingly handed my hard-earned $125 to the faceless bandit by buying a Vanilla Visa gift card at a local Walgreens.
Yes. Despite my sharp wit, my book smarts and my inherently strong BS detector — a sixth sense passed down from my Manhattan-native mother — I’m now one of the 73 million Americans who’ve fallen prey to savage gift card scammers since 2022.
Beneath buzzy TikTok hashtags like #GiftCardScam and #GiftCardScamAwareness, which boast a combined 11.2 million views, freshly fleeced folks like me are sharing horror stories about getting hoodwinked after purchasing the pre-paid plastic.
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