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
How the scam works:
Steal photos of expensive, high-quality product
Advertise via Facebook at $20-$30
Only accept PayPal payments, not credit cards (this is important – see later)
When a customer orders an item, send something cheap – a keyring, a pair of kids sunglasses, whatever.
When item arrives, the buyer contacts PayPal for a refund as the wrong goods were delivered.
PayPal advises that under their Ts&Cs, they will only process a refund on proof of return postage at buyer’s expense.
Buyer goes to post office and discovers that the return postage to China costs more than the original purchase cost, so to get a refund, they have to lose even more money.
Buyer abandons refund request, so PayPal takes no action against the seller.
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