• Photo Visa Gift Card
• Predesigned Visa Gallery
• Visa Virtual Gifts
• Group Gifting
• Discounted Merchant Cards

With the ever increasing prevalence of identity theft, credit card fraud and money laundering practices, GiftCards.com prides itself on its progressive fraud prevention system that has produced minimal fraud-related losses to both the company and, more importantly, the cardholder.

Our fraud prevention efforts are continuously improving. We have been in the gift card business for over ten years now and have seen it all when it comes to gift card related fraud. It seems, however, that fraudsters become more sophisticated as the e-commerce community grows, making it all the more necessary for merchants and cardholders to stay one step ahead of their scam tactics. We need your help in this fight. Should you come across any suspicious websites and/or e-mails that you suspect as being fraudulent, please report it to us immediately.

Common Scams in the Gift Card Industry:

1. In-Store theft: This scenario involves the fraudster physically going into a store that sells gift cards, locating said gift cards, and documenting the gift card information (gift card number, CVV code and PIN) without actually making a purchase. The fraudster then waits until the compromised gift card's value has been loaded, at which time, he/she will proceed to use the gift card on-line where it is not necessary to physically have the card. The legitimate purchaser of the gift card is then left with a card that is stripped of its value. Merchants have become aware of this scam and have thereby included a scratchable PIN to their gift cards.
2. Auction sites: This scam is becoming more and more common in the e-commerce community and presents itself in several forms. The fraudster in this case will sell gift cards on-line posing as a legitimate auction site. What the customer doesn't realize is that their purchased gift card is either counterfeit or contains a value load less than the represented amount.
3. Discounted gift card sites: Beware of any gift card site that promises to sell merchant gift cards at a price significantly less than the actual value. One such site is http://giftcodes.us. These sites follow a fairly straightforward scheme: selling either a non-existent product or a product that does not match the customer's expectations. The customer believes they are getting a great deal on a merchant gift card, but come to find that the purchased card is either non-existent or contains a value load far less than that of which was represented. The solution? Buy from trusted sites like Giftcards.com, Plasticjungle.com and Giftcardrescue.com.
4. Advance-fee fraud: This scheme, also known as a '419' scam, originates as a mass e-mail that is sent out to millions of random e-mail addresses. These fantastical e-mails are extremely easy to identify. The rule of thumb is this: if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. While there are many different types of '419' scams, they all follow the same structure. The scammer is asking for assistance in a matter that could be financially beneficial in the long run. All the recipient would need to do is pay a small sum in return for a very large sum - which never comes.
   
   A common example is that the e-mail recipient has won a secret lottery and is now owed millions of dollars. All the recipient would need to do is pay a thousand dollars in 'shipping' fees in order to receive the prize. The shipping cost is paid and the recipient is left with a fictional claim to a million dollar prize.
5. Charity-based scams: A scam has recently surfaced in which individuals are used as pawns in laundering money overseas by receiving and selling stolen gift cards.
   
   Here is how it works: Individuals are contacted by fictional charities and asked for their assistance in forwarding money to the needy. These individuals are told that that they will receive gift cards in the mail and are then instructed to sell the gift cards on-line for cash. Once the cash is received, these individuals are instructed to forward the money to the fictional charity via money-gram services such as Western Union. Unbeknownst to them, the gift cards were illegally obtained and the money was forwarded directly into the scammer's pocket. One such example is www.everysoulcounts.com.

Three known fraudsters to BEWARE OF:

1. www.giftcodes.us/website - [thieves posing as a discounted gift card site]
2. Globalgiftcardconnect - globalgiftcard@gmail.com and http://wantedworkers.com/index.php?post_id=962&cat=21 [thieves offering for you to buy gift cards and then saying they will pay you - they are overseas and they are a scam, see fraud dialog]
3. www.everysoulcounts.com - [fictional charity site]