They are convenient, popular and can be found pretty much anywhere.
Purchasing gift cards have become a pretty common practice in today’s society in places like Prince George and across Canada but they can also get into a lot of trouble, especially scams.
One of the most recent cases was where a Kelowna woman was scammed out of $40,000 after buying an abundance of Google Play gift cards where she was duped into believing she was assisting in a fraud investigation.
Karla Davis is the Manager of Community and Public Relations with the Better Business Bureau in BC who explains why it’s so easy for people to get sucked into these scams.
“Scammers will gravitate to brand names that people recognize, brands that people know and brands that people trust. Even without the Google Play aspect, just using the word Google is a name that almost every consumer knows.”
Davis adds once the activation code or PIN number is given out to the scammer the funds can not be reversed and is considered untraceable with little chance of the victim receiving their money back.
Another way scammers try to rip off people is by posing as a very recognizable celebrity with mass global appeal such as Oprah.
Davis reminds the public if you get approached by someone posing as one, end contact immediately to avoid giving away any sensitive information.
“A lot of the times, these scammers will use images of these celebrities put them up on fake websites and tell them to buy a certain product, because this product is endorsed by Oprah for example, and Oprah has no idea about this site or even that product exists or that they have been fraudulently using her name and image to endorse the product.”
“They know that people watch these celebrities on TV or on social media every day and feel very attached to them. So if a celebrity says to use this product especially if you are a fan you will be more likely to gravitate towards that direction and so, if you believe you are in communication with a celebrity or this celebrity seems to have put up a website or endorsed the product on there you are more likely to follow up.”
Even some of the most trusted places we think of like banks and financial institutions are not safe from this as they are often prime targets for scammers who try and get access to some very sensitive information.
“Look out for early morning phone calls. A lot of the time scammers will call consumers in the wee hours of the morning and scare them almost into thinking something is wrong with their account and the only way to solve that problem is to pay for gift cards making it part of a phony investigation and if that’s the case, the first thing to know is banks like many other businesses will have business hours.”
“If someone claims to be calling from your bank away from those hours, that’s a red flag right there.”
Davis adds if someone is asking you to make a payment via gift card that is also a red flag as all purchases you make on a daily basis involves cash, credit or debit.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
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