Yaa always a problem but recently check this out.

Two cards from Kroger fam stores in the west with 6.95 fees. Mag stripes deactivated but card worked OK for transactions where clerk typed in the number manually. Ofc I went to EU on FD trip thinking I'd use them steadily on return...but noo... huge fraudulent debits while I was out of the country. I had to report these to the Jax address. The online portal rlly sucks because if the cards are compromised in certain ways, instead of simply being de-activated by USB, then the prepaidgiftbalance site returns error message and u cannot follow the (new) normal procedure for replacement. No way to do this over the phone now. The fact that these cards were not deactivated but were still working and therefore not blocked allowed them to be used without my knowledge.

Next VGC at CVS. False barcodes taped into packs. CVS reps know me because of industrial MS over the past decade so they tell me Yaaa these guys swipe cards and retturn them to the racks later with packages re-sealed but false barcodes...ofc as soon as you activate they drain. I wrote these in to USB and in cases where USB failed to respond went to FDIC. They typically replace witihn days of FDIC formal complaint so if u have this issue go hard at them.

I have 2.5k outstanding via these frauds. Watch out.