The Nation’s First Law Protecting Against Gift Card Draining Has Passed. Will It Work?
The Nation’s First Law Protecting Against Gift Card Draining Has Passed. Will It Work?
Despite industry pushback, Maryland became the first state to require secure packaging for most gift cards sold at stores. “It will change packaging nationally,” one retail insider predicted.
Card draining is a scheme in which thieves remove gift cards from stores, capture their numeric codes or swap them out for counterfeit cards, and place the products back on display. When an unsuspecting customer loads money onto a tampered or counterfeit card, criminals access it online and steal the balance.
The Maryland law marks a milestone in the growing government effort to combat card draining, which escalated dramatically during the pandemic thanks to the ingenuity of Chinese organized crime rings. ProPublica recently reported that late last year, after a spate of consumer complaints and arrests, the Department of Homeland Security launched a task force to address card draining.
I've had this happen to me, Google treated me like it was I who was scamming them. I won't give them my credit card, because every time I do, my card gets stolen. That's when I tried the gift cards, lol. Yeah, I know, don't use google products. Note taken.