How do scammers extract money from the gift cards they get? How is it that companies can’t stop them?

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I was discussing different scam techniques I have heard of/seen with my husband the other day. I wondered out loud… “what do these guys do with iTunes or whichever gift cards they get?” Obviously they are not shopping at the Apple Store?

He said they have a way to get the money out of them, but didn’t know how it worked. I assume he’s right… now I am curious how does this happen, and why can’t apple or google make it harder for the scammers to use their gift cards?

EDIT – lots of good explanations! I was talking specifically about gift card scammers who convince their victims over phone/email/text to purchase gift cards and send them the activated codes. TIL there are many ways to use gift cards to scam ppl.

In: Technology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

You might find [this article from ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/walmart-financial-services-became-fraud-magnet-gift-cards-money-laundering) very interesting and informative.

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