Who needs cash when gift cards are faster, anonymous, and basically irreversible?
Gift cards abuse - common attack patterns:
π― Fraudsters impersonate bosses or vendors and demand gift-card codes as "urgent" payments - a favorite in BEC and imposter scams[ref].
π Romance and "emergency" scams ask victims to buy gift cards and read the codes aloud - an easy, untraceable cash-out.
π± Phishing and smishing campaigns harvest photos of activated cards or one-time codes; retailers and staff get phished too.
π Fraudsters launder value by reselling codes on marketplaces, converting them into cryptocurrencies, or using money mules.
π¬ Point-of-sale and retailer-targeting attacks let criminals activate or drain cards before victims realize, making recovery very hard.
Consumers reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024 (up 25% year-over-year). The FBI/IC3 saw hundreds of thousands of complaints in recent years highlighting the scale of imposter-style scams that often use gift cards[ref].
β What can we do:
For employees and individuals: never pay a vendor, boss, or "official" with a gift card. If asked, pause and verify via a known phone number or in-person. Treat any urgent payment request as suspicious.
For employers: add explicit policies forbidding gift-card payments; require dual-channel verification for payment approvals (call-back to known number). Train new hires about "boss-request-via-e-channel" scams - attackers love new starters.
For retailers & platforms: Place visible warning posters near gift card racks and checkout counters, train staff to spot suspicious bulk purchases, and introduce βfrictionβ, like prompts at the register asking if the customer has been instructed to buy cards for someone else. When accepting the gift card - implement activation hold windows, transaction anomaly detection (large-volume activations, odd geography), and "spend locks" for suspicious accounts. Work with issuers to flag redeemed codes tied to reported scams quickly.
For banks/payments teams: monitor for sudden purchases of multiple high-value gift cards from the same customer, correlate with account takeover signals, and consider notifying customer of risks related to gift cards.