stupidest. scam. ever.

[nomorecarts]

I had a customer come up with 4 gift cards saying the "I'm not sure how much is on these" line. I scanned the cards and none of them were activated, and the following conversation ensues.

SC:what does that mean they're not activated
me:it means they never had anything put on them
SC:how'd they even get them out the door?
me:*I'm guessing in their pocket or purse*we don't pay attention to the gift cards because there's nothing on them
SC:I always thought they had something on them


and this wasn't a kid, not even a teen, she was a 40something woman, and she honestly thought the gift cards on the shelves had something on them? did she try to sell some phone cards? My store has $30 video games. those are locked up. We have $80 phone cards, and $100 gift cards, you could probably fit $5k in your pockets with no one noticing even if they were trying to watch, but those are not locked up. wanna guess why? and these weren't even the ones with an amount on them, they were the regular ones that can be anywhere from $5 to $2500

if it was just one, or she wasn't so stupid I would have thought someone gave her an empty gift card, but i'm pretty sure she "stole" them herself. I gave them back to her, I wonder if she tried later at another register

[MiddleofNowhere]

happens all the time...

Nomorecarts...

That sort of thing happens nearly DAILY at our store.

Sometimes it's little kids who grab them because they think they're 'credit cards', most the time it's scruffy teenagers trying to scam free stuff

Scruffy Teenager: 'Yeah, I got this for my birthday and it won't work! **grumble**
Me: 'Okay, when was it purchased? Can you get the receipt from the person who gave it to you?'
Scruffy Teenager: 'Errrr... uhhhhh... well, I didn't actually get it for my birthday. My *friend* gave me it - said he found it. (it's always their *friend*)
Me: 'Well, I need you to have a receipt in order for us to honor it'
Scruffy Teenager: 'Never mind...**shuffles off**

Had a few twitchy adults try it too, but they were so obviously crackheads trying to get free product to sell to their buddies for their next hit, we tell them to hit the road unless they have a receipt.

[snackbandit]

My mother gave some of her coworkers giftcards to Target. As it turns out, the cashier hadn't scanned them properly, so when they went to use them it said the card had never been activated. They (Target Cashiers) accused my mother of stealing the giftcards! Fortunately, she had kept the receipt so she could prove she did pay for them, but it was still very embarassing.

[bainsidhe]

WTF?? Just...wow. I've never dealth with anyone quite this lame, but I've run into the occasional person who received a card from work that hadn't been activated. (I just WISH my workplace gave gift cards as bonuses, BTW). These customers have always been understanding and I'm more than willing to print a slip showing they were never activated. With our gift cards, I point out that you weren't charged if they were never activated. Our registers won't allow it. Also, I'll sometimes get the odd customer who didn't realize their card was used up (thow them AWAY, folks). Meh.

[I_Hate_SCs]

Also, I'll sometimes get the odd customer who didn't realize their card was used up (thow them AWAY, folks). Meh.

Ugh, this reminds me of the store manager at 'Bullseye' telling everyone in the store that if a customer uses a giftcard and they use it up in their transaction, you are supposed to ask them if they want to keep the card to load money on it in the future. Then you'd give them the empty giftcard and they'd be on their merry way.

I could see why the SM wanted us to do that, as it'd cut down on the amount of new cards going around and be 'more green' I guess. He also said he doesn't like getting a stack of expired gift cards at the end of the day that could be reused and spent in the store (as if more giftcards will prevent customers from using other forms of payment), but as you can imagine, it caused many problems with SCs.

Most of the customers looked at me like I had 3 heads when I asked if they wanted to keep their gift card. Then, after I explain they could reload it, they would say some rude comment like "I'm not that cheap!' or "Don't you have something better to do than ask me that?"

Oh and yes, I got a few customers who would realize their cards weren't reloaded when they went to pay for their crap, which ultimately resulted in heaping carts of reshop for us to put back because they were otherwise broke and couldn't afford what they purchased without the gift card.

I even had this one gem:

Me: Sorry ma'am, but your giftcard has a $0 balance.
SC: It can't! I used it before and the card was given back and I was told it could be reused.
Me: Oh, well did you reload money onto it? If you have the receipt I can check...
SC: *interrupting* I had $60 on this card the last time I used it. I was told by the cashier the $60 would be reloaded on the card when it was given back to me.
Me: Um, to put money back on your card, you have to have the money in the first place to reload it. You don't get the money for free.
SC: But I was given back the card! Why give it back unless there's still money on it?



I honestly wondered if the SC above really knew what I was trying to tell her in a failed attempt to scam the store out of $60, or if she was really that dense.

[Foxglove8778]

..., or if she was really that dense.

I vote "dense".

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Reloading gift cards? That sounds like a major King Kamehameha pain in the ass. I'm glad my store doesn't go that--as far as I know.

We recently started selling gift cards for iTunes, Cold Stone Creamery, Cracker Barrel, Blockbuster, Home Depot, etc. One of the stores near us accepted a return on one of those cards, prompting a very terse e-mail from corporate, because we can't accept returns on third-party gift cards. The recipient has to call an 800-number on the card to take the money off it, I guess.

[AriaBlue]

My mother gave some of her coworkers giftcards to Target. As it turns out, the cashier hadn't scanned them properly, so when they went to use them it said the card had never been activated. They (Target Cashiers) accused my mother of stealing the giftcards! Fortunately, she had kept the receipt so she could prove she did pay for them, but it was still very embarassing.

I'm not even sure how that works, because for the gift card numbers to show up on a receipt, they have to be scanned and activated. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just not sure how that could even happen.

I have had a few people this Christmas season try and used gift cards that were clearly gifts, only to have them be unactivated. Hearing this is really making me start to wonder...

[venroses]

There was a problem at another store of our chain nearby, where a staff member was stealing the money from the gift card sales and was never activating the cards.

I'm not sure how these people would leave a store without the activation or balance slip, though.

[Slytovhand]

I even had this one gem:

Me: Sorry ma'am, but your giftcard has a $0 balance.
SC: It can't! I used it before and the card was given back and I was told it could be reused.
Me: Oh, well did you reload money onto it? If you have the receipt I can check...
SC: *interrupting* I had $60 on this card the last time I used it. I was told by the cashier the $60 would be reloaded on the card when it was given back to me.
Me: Um, to put money back on your card, you have to have the money in the first place to reload it. You don't get the money for free.
SC: But I was given back the card! Why give it back unless there's still money on it?



I honestly wondered if the SC above really knew what I was trying to tell her in a failed attempt to scam the store out of $60, or if she was really that dense.

I got a topper...

I had a friend work for a bank on the call centre. She told me she once got a call from a customer about a credit card with X thousand dollars on it. She rang to say she was perplexed, as she thought that as long as she paid the minimum balance every month, she could have X thousand dollars to spend every month.

[Rivulatus]

When we first started offering gift cards, the direction from corp was to have them on display through the store so customers would impulse buy them as gifts (thus guaranteeing that ultimately goods would be bought). The displays had signs saying that the cards had no value until activated. Well within a week ALL of our $50, $100 & $200 cards had disappeared, (50 of each) but we'd only sold a couple.

And not surprisingly over the next several months we had heaps of people attempting to use them. Because they are tracked by which store they are issued to even before they are activated, we were able to flag them all as stolen, so they don't just scan up as saying non-activated, they actually scan as stolen. In some cases I think the people presenting them had legitimately received them as gifts (from the original thief), while in other cases I'm sure it was the thief trying to present them. The cards stolen from our store started cropping up all over the country too.

Surprisingly, our store is the only one that has had a gift card theft issue. Other stores have maybe one or two stolen a month (which is probably just kids anyway), whereas we had 150 stolen in a week.

[Hyndis]

This is why I both refuse to use gift cards, and why I refuse to get anyone else a gift card.

If gift cards must be involved, I use the universal gift card instead:

[smileyeagle1021]

Surprisingly, our store is the only one that has had a gift card theft issue. Other stores have maybe one or two stolen a month (which is probably just kids anyway), whereas we had 150 stolen in a week.

kind of stupid question... but if it has no value is it really theft

[caitsith2]

kind of stupid question... but if it has no value is it really theft

It actually is. Although these cards have no value on them, they actually cost money to make, and cost money to ship to the stores.

[Rapscallion]

I got a topper...

I had a friend work for a bank on the call centre. She told me she once got a call from a customer about a credit card with X thousand dollars on it. She rang to say she was perplexed, as she thought that as long as she paid the minimum balance every month, she could have X thousand dollars to spend every month.

Sound anything like this? Just uploaded.

Rapscallion