Costco is known for having amazing deals on pretty much everything, but these gift cards could end up being the worst value item you’ve ever bought.
If you’ve ever been to Costco, you’ve probably seen the popular packs of digital gift cards they sell that are often priced lower than their full value.
Including brands like Xbox and Dominos, these bundles often contain four-packs of $25 gift cards for $89.99 or less, meaning that customers are getting a great bargain on their purchase.
However, this may no longer be the case, as one Reddit thread has uncovered a fraudulent scheme being run by thieves that means customers are activating their cards, only to find that they don’t have the full funds available.
Customers warn against gift card scam
One Costco shopper revealed on Reddit that they’d purchased the four-pack of $25 Dominos gift cards only to discover that one of the cards was only loaded with $15. “It does make me lose some trust, and defeated the whole point of me buying them at a discount.” the shopper noted.
The worst part is, that this seems to have happened to a lot of people.
“I went through a similar problem [with] Dominos gift cards purchased digitally from Costco. Two $25 cards were fine and two were completely closed,” another user commented on the post.
Another shopper attempted to clarify the subject, noting, “I watched a video on gift card theft and it seems like it’s a big issue today.”
This type of scam is becoming increasingly popular, according to Fox News. It involves draining gift cards of their funds before they can be used, and it is an attractive scam to thieves as the theft is not detected until someone who has already bought the gift card attempts to use it.
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How do gift card scams work?
Typically, these scammers will remove the silver strip covering the gift card number, note down the number, or take a photo of it, and then replace the silver strip without anyone detecting that there has been some tampering.
According to the original Reddit thread, it can be really difficult to dispute the funds with your bank and it often ends up with the thieves not being pursued by law enforcement as there is no record of when the crime was committed.
The scam has apparently gotten so common that an alleged Costco call center employee begged shoppers to avoid the digital gift cards in another Reddit post.
The employee claims to have received many complaints from Costco members, such as a mother of four who’d bought $1,000 in Disney gift cards that all ended up having $0 balances.
Since gift cards are non-refundable at Costco, the employee said the chances of getting a refund on a drained card are slim to nonexistent.
“Please DO NOT take the chance. I’m sick of dealing with the issues, telling members that their cards were redeemed somewhere across the country by a person with a totally different name,” they wrote.
As of right now, Costco has not commented on the widespread issue, however, it’s important to remember that this theft is not occurring in all stores and that many customers have purchased these gift cards without any issues.