The Truth About Identity Theft

Truth 22 That gift card might be worthless

In recent years, gift cards have become the ultimate gift. The people you’re buying for get what they want, and you don’t have to work too hard at picking out the right gift. Unfortunately, in 2006 and 2007, people in the U.S. started running into a form of theft in which legitimate gift cards purchased in legitimate stores ended up with a zero balance, even though the purchaser had done nothing wrong.

While the person receiving the card was not a victim of having any personal information stolen, the identification of the gift card was being impersonated. What made this more interesting is that this attack was taking place often days before the card was ever purchased.

The original attack is actually ...