Up in MA here and haven't had any issues, but will certainly be scratching off the PIN at the register now before purchasing... and then loading immediately after purchase.

I am already careful before I purchase to look at the cards and I'd go home and load within 10 min of purchasing, but I think best bet now is to scratch the pin at the register and then load with a smartphone while you're there or in the parking lot.

With the fraud being confined to ATL currently, it sounds like an organized group that is lifting and tampering the cards, then returning them to stores. Then they'd run through a spreadsheet of stolen PINs and try to load and see what gets lucky.