raccah

I only buy the party cards - they are hermetically sealed and have no external facing info at all. It is easy to see if the seal is broken. Also, I buy them and in less than 1 hour I use them. I will NEVER float these damn cards again.

Finally, even if the portal points fall off - the fact that you get the cards from GCM/Staples - it is worth the piece of mind, versus buying them at the store.

Corelli

Yes my tampered-with gift card was purchased at Vons, along with many others via the fat wallet thread. Tampered-with by the same guy in Hemet.

ericdabbs

Vons only sells the VGCs sold by Metabank. Are you telling me your VGC you got scammed on the Metabank VGCs? Also when you purchased the VGC, did you check to see if the perforation was torn off on the back. It even says to tell the cashier to tear off the perforation at time of purchase. If the back is torn I would not be buying that VGC.

bellevie11

Same thing for me too. Purchased at Vons, emptied in the Riverside county area. Emptied at a Walmart, a fast food place and a gas station. Not sure how they did it because i physically still have the card.

Corelli

Are you telling me your VGC you got scammed on the Metabank VGCs?

Yes.

Also when you purchased the VGC, did you check to see if the perforation was torn off on the back. It even says to tell the cashier to tear off the perforation at time of purchase.

The perforation was not torn off the back. The cashier tore it off at time of purchase.

Again, be very careful buying gift cards at supermarkets in the SoCal area. The gift cards and packaging look perfect. The thief is using a razor blade to slice through the packaging (so that it's not noticeable) copying the card info, putting everything back together, and then putting them back on the shelves waiting for people to activate them.

The clear give away (once you rip open the packaging and remove the card) is that there will be a dirty kind of glue that doesn't go away. This is what the thief is using to keep everything in place.

In the meantime, read this thread http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1290841/ and if you absolutely must buy gift cards at supermarkets, try to get ones that are up high and in the back (thief likes to put them right in front), and do a very thorough analysis before you pay (ideally taking the card out of the packaging completely). If the clerk gives you a problem, inform them of the ongoing fraud, and say you would rather give a gift without packaging, rather than a gift that doesn't work.

Explore

This happened to me with three Vanilla Reload cards when you could still buy them at CVS with credit cards. Of course, those cards are simpler. Backing looked fine, but must have been tampered with somehow. Incomm and US Bank refused to cover my loss, so I'm now looking at filing a small claims action against CVS.

ericdabbs

So in hindsight do you remember seeing any slits on the side of the VGC packaging?

Alcibiades

If CVS loaded the VR but someone quickly drained it, you probably need to small claim against Incomm

deant

You need to file against BOTH. If you don't, they will just point the finger at each other. CVS will say that Incomm gave them bad cards and Incomm will say that CVS did not take proper security measures. No way to prove which one was at fault.

If you have the receipt, you might be able to do a charge back. Will probably need information on where the card was unloaded (which you would also need for small claims court).

josephstern

So the thief is checking these numbers constantly to see if they have a balance on the bank websites? Seems like the banks could take a little initiative here, and if they get 20, 50, 100 or how ever many balance requests for inactive cards, that's the flag. They just don't allow those to ever be activated. At the point of purchase, the register could just refuse to activate the card.

hitman1420

At my Ralphs. Only the last 4 digits of the cards are different. I've ordered more than enough cards to conclude so. In each new shipment they get. That entire batch of 100 or so cards, only has the last 4 numbers to differentiate from.

Thinking of relaying this to the local managers to inform them they should keep the cards at the front. I've had ~$5k tied up in the past month due to this.

Then again, this is probably a bad idea since Ralph's will probably stop accepting payments via CC for whatever reason if this is brought to their attention...

josephstern

One of these stores has to have a guy on video restocking their shelves with cards.

hitman1420

Definitely, but is it worth it bringing attention to our large throughput of GC purchases?

Methinks this is the price of MS'ing. I think it would be best just to accept this as the price of MS, being prepared to float large amount for 3-4 weeks should be perfectly fine if you're in this hobby. Any more experienced people care to weigh in?

josephstern

This is what gets MSing shut down - fraud. If it becomes unprofitable for one of the many parties involved due to this loss, then we've got a problem.

We work with a fragile group of partners here, and having this thief injected into our network can only cause issues.

Alcibiades

Yes.
Unfortunately, No.