Walmart Stops $4M in Gift Cards From Reaching Scammers Targeting Older Victims

Walmart’s technology has helped it identify and freeze millions in gift cards that were bought by elderly victims that had fallen prey to con artists, CNBC wrote Monday (April 4).

The U.S. Department of Justice recently seized the funds after being notified by the retail giant.

Now the victims can get their money back.

The seizure of the phony gift cards is a boon for older Americans and others who’d lost money in the scams, if they knew they had lost money at all.

CNBC wrote that the money Walmart saved for those victims is a “small fraction” of the millions lost every year in various “impostor” scams that make use of gift card purchases. The amount of money from those scams has only surged in the last few years – in the first nine months of 2021, consumers reported losing $148 million in frauds where gift cards had been used to pay scammers, Federal Trade Commission data reported.

By contrast, there was $114 million lost to gift card scams in all of 2020.

The scams usually involve callers phoning victims, telling them they owe money for a debt or needed services. The calls say the victims should go to a retail store and buy a gift card that can be used to pay off the supposed obligation.

The caller often says they’re a representative of the government, utility or a private company, insisting on quick payment.

PYMNTS wrote that in 2020, organizational fraud threats were spiking during the holidays.

See also: Organizations’ Fraud Threats Rise This Holiday Season

The report notes that the pandemic, then still somewhat new, had caused eCommerce to surge, and fraud with it – everything from chargeback fraud to online product scams.

Online shoppers were at risk, but the fraud threats went all down the supply chain, putting corporates at risk, too, because of their then-nascent move to online.