‘Target has my money and the crook has the gift!’: How victims are losing hundreds on the cruel ‘card draining’ scam that leaves gift cards for major retailers utterly WORTHLESS

Suzanne Gdovic wanted to send her friend's daughter a gift card that she could spend freely at Target.

It was a baby shower gift and she wanted her friend's daughter to be able to spend $200 on everything she needed before the newborn arrived. Instead, she ended up sending her a card with no balance.

Suzanne, 64, of Arvada, Colorado, is one of many who have fallen victim to a “card draining” scam, which results in people receiving totally worthless gift cards.

Sneaky crooks temporarily steal batches of gift cards from stores – sometimes hundreds at a time – so they can write down the card number and PIN or activation code.

At the moment, the cards are worthless because customers still have to load money on them. But criminals then return them to store shelves – knowing that customers will eventually shower them with cash of up to $500 – and steal the money before the recipient can spend it.

Police are warning of an increase in these scams during the holidays as last-minute shoppers look for gifts for family and friends.

Fraudsters know that gift card recipients are unlikely to attempt to spend them until Christmas Day. By then, the gangs will have spent the money loaded to them, resulting in confused recipients receiving gift cards with a $0 balance.

But this crime doesn't just affect shoppers this time of year.

A recent Better Business Bureau study found that reports of gift card scams increased 50 percent this year alone.

Suzanne purchased the $200 Target gift card (which she didn't know had been tampered with) at her local store in September.

A few weeks later, she received a text from her friend's daughter, to whom she had given it as a gift, saying it had a $0 balance. A message had also appeared on the cashier's screen stating that the gift card had been linked to someone else's account.

“It was embarrassing,” Suzanne told DailyMail.com. 'And I felt bad for her. You're willing to spend $200 and then suddenly it's not there anymore. And then of course she had to pay for it.'

Suzanne immediately went to Target to find out what was going on.

The manager of her local store told her they were aware of a scam where criminals come in and scrape off the protective metal strip and access the activation number on the card – before expertly reapplying the strip.

Not only was Suzanne angry about losing the money, but she also didn't want the same thing to happen to anyone else.

“I asked to take all the cards off the shelves because people were buying them when I spoke to the manager,” Suzanne said. “The target has my money, and the thug has the gift!”

She contacted Target's corporate office and eventually received her refund in November – two months after she originally purchased the gift card.

“There was no acknowledgment or acknowledgment in the letter that came that they were going to replace this because of the scam,” Suzanne said. 'The retailers have to help us. I feel sorry for people who don't get their money back.'

DailyMail.com reached out to Target but did not immediately receive a response.

But Target isn't the only retailer targeted by criminals, who use a variety of tactics to deceive shoppers.

In some cases, fraudsters even subtly open the sealed envelopes in which the cards are stored, cut off and retain the part of the card containing the activation code.

They then put the cut-out card back in the envelope – with the barcode still visible so a cashier can scan it and add money – which they can then steal.

Earlier this week, DailyMail.com reported how authorities across the country have warned about the scam, which also affects Apple, Amazon and Visa Vanilla gift cards, among others.

Victims from all over the country reached out and explained how they had lost as much as $650, accidentally handing completely worthless gift cards to loved ones.

Dina Swartz, from Texas, told how she was left 'embarrassed' after sending a friend's daughter a gift card with a $100 value missing.

“I bought a gift card for my friend's daughter, who had a newborn,” she said.

“I purchased the gift card in San Antonio, Texas, and immediately sent it to my friend's daughter in Austin, Texas. When she tried to use it, the balance was zero.”

Dina filed a complaint with Target — and the company ended up reissued the card and sent it directly to her friend's daughter.

“I felt ashamed that my friend's daughter – a young mother with a newborn – had to go through this process,” she said.

Greg Clark told DailyMail.com how he bought two Visa Vanilla cards worth $500 at a Walgreens store in Manhattan, New York City.

When he went to spend them, he saw that $650 had been deducted from the cards together, and some of it had been spent on online Amazon purchases.

He said he saved the packaging and noticed there were glue dots on the bottom of the sealed envelope where one of the cards had been, indicating it had been tampered with.

Another victim, Sonja Neilson, said she was also scammed out of $100 on a Visa Vanilla card – and would never buy one at the store again.

Police are warning shoppers to check for signs that the card has been tampered with, such as scratches, scuffs or missing parts of the card, before purchasing.

This is because – to get the numbers – the crooks have usually scratched off the silver security foil. They then replace this with an almost identical sticker or more foil, which is sold online on sites like Alibaba.

Damage to the card or foil is a telltale sign that fraudsters have obtained the card's details, putting money added to the card at risk of being stolen.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend $29.3 billion on gift cards by 2023.

Police in Pinole, California warned of something else to be aware of after officers spotted a variation on the scam. They detailed on Instagram the alternative tactics used by scammers video.

They said the crooks stole gift cards, removed them from sealed envelopes and then cut off the activation code, which is hidden under the sealed envelope in the store.

“What we recommend you do is when you buy a gift card, pay attention to the entire card, which should be the same size as a credit card,” Sergeant Duggan of the Pinole Police Department said in the video.

“Or, with the store's permission, if you are going to purchase these, remove them from the sealed envelope and make sure the entire card is there.”

Earlier this month, a man was arrested and charged with tampering with gift cards at a Target store in Sacramento, according to the California County Sheriff's Office.

Under a Sheriff's Office Facebook post warning of the scam, one person wrote, “Last Christmas we received a Target gift card with no balance, but it was a sensitive topic to bring up with the senders. That probably explains why the gift card had zero balance.”

Police said Ningning Sun stole gift cards and replaced them on the rack with another set of apparently identical ones. It is thought he put a deck of cards for which he and his gang had obtained details back on the shelves.

Detectives then discovered more than 5,000 Target and Apple gift cards in his possession.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office said their investigation revealed Sun was part of a gift card scam in California and several regions across the country.

“Sun was part of a scam that involved tampering with gift cards, scanning the barcode and stealing money from the gift card when money was loaded onto it,” a statement said.

'Victims are completely unaware that this is happening, and the money is often transferred to an offshore account within seconds. These operations are highly sophisticated and changes to the gift cards are often virtually undetectable, even to the trained eye,” the report continued.