Originally Posted by
Alcibiades
stolen credit cards are just one problem
A local Safeway, formerly a reliable source for MS, recently implemented a cash-only policy for purchase of VGC's. I asked one of the managers what the reason was - his take on this was that someone had come to the store to purchase VGC's, and that person had been contacted by a scammer via telephone, telling them that the IRS was going to come to their house and arrest them if they didn't provide a credit card number or debit card number. That story was corroborated a few days later when our sheriff's department weekly news column mentioned what had happened.
I didn't argue with the manager- who knows me as a frequent customer (groceries as well as VGC's!) - but apparently he was focused on the ease of using a credit card to purchase a VGC. But that's only a minor part of the social engineering problem. Customer could have purchased one with cash, too (that particular Safeway is a hundred yards from my bank, for example, so if I needed to provide an "IRS" official with a gift card number, I'd just have to make a stop at my bank first to withdraw cash).
I'm guessing that the store manager is congratulating himself on stopping the fraud problem, when he really hasn't done much at all except inconvenience VGC purchasers - at least in the larger amounts.
Incidentally, after reading about this "IRS" scam for at least a year or two, I was "pleased"
to be called twice in one week by people who identified as "collectors" for the IRS. Their English wasn't very good - first tip-off! - so I laughed at them and just hung up. When I was younger I would have "played" with them on the phone, but after decades of this garbage I've lost interest in that game.
There's another aspect of VGC purchases I've wondered about. Does the store make a profit on these cards? Or are they just carrying them as a convenience item for their customers? I don't purchase enough salad, fried chicken, and bread to make up for the 2% - 3% the store has to pay on my credit card charge, if I also purchase, say, $1500 worth of VGCs.
Maybe it's not just fraud considerations here, but the stores are actually losing money when we purchase VGC's with credit cards? So they're looking for reasons to shut MS down?
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