Originally Posted by
zsnyder821
I had my wife pick up some gift cards at a giant in KOP area tonight and the CS desk said they had 3 people come in and purchase gc with stolen credit cards in the past week. They prevented the one guy but the other two got away with it. They had to call up the manager to process the transaction for my wife. I'm sure this happens all the time but hopefully it doesn't kill buying gc with cc at giant anytime soon
Yeah, it seems strange to us ("like isn't EVERYBODY buying gift cards for the benefits"), but it does seem like it's still pretty rare -- and that a material percentage of large gift card transactions ARE fraudulent. One of my Staples managers told me that there are only "a few of you guys we can trust," and that most of the other people who try to buy them are crooks! I've always thought she was paranoid, but maybe I underestimate the incidence of fraud. I do know that when I go to a grocery store, the cashiers and other patrons within earshot are often startled when I buy a $500 gift card. If I buy 2, you'd think I was making a million dollar purchase. BTW, they almost always think that I'm buying them as a gift: so I constantly get comments like "Wow -- you're going to make somebody very happy." So the idea that there are credit card benefits that you can get from buying gift cards (much less gas points) is something known to only a tiny, tiny percentage of the population. Probably 99% of the population thinks gift cards are for, well, gifts!