A woman in Springfield, Missouri is suing Walmart for a giftcard scam (McCoy v. Wal-Mart Stores East LP, et al.,Case No. 6:18-cv-03256, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri). The scam is described as follows:
- Criminals remove the security tape from the back of the gift card
- They then photograph the PIN number
- Then they replace the security tape with a similar looking tape
- Once the cards have been purchased and activate the criminals can then use or resell the gift cards
The lawsuit alleges that Walmart is not doing enough to prevent this type of fraud and is refusing refunds. It also claims other gift card brands (e.g Visa) are selling gift cards in secure packaging that can’t be tampered with.
Hat tip to Top Class Actions
It happened to me 2 separate cards totalling $150. I want my money back! Wal-Mart is ripping people off!
Today I received an email said my Walmart online information was updated, and I know something went wrong. As soon as I logged in, I found all three gift card balance total $257 which I stored online in my account were spent this morning in Missouri store #5421. I’m in California and I have all the three gift cards in my purse right now. SO SO angry and sad! If I know Walmart online security department is so week and the system was able to be hacked so easily I definitely won’t store any of my GC information online. I use to store the GC information in my online account so that I don’t need to bring them into store during checkout and I don’t need to type that long information every time I purchase online. But now I learned the lesson: Never store your credit card or Gift card information online. Better to be not so convenient instead of losing your own money for real!!! Right now there GC department closed and I need to wait till tmr morning to call them!
Reminds me once I bought a $20-$25 Serve temp card from CVS and that the card ain’t activated correctly or scanned correctly by the cashier. Receipt tossed before knowing that. It just happens sometimes. There’s no way this Springfield woman would win. I mean “not good enough”, you got to define what that really means. How much she’s paying for attorney vs. what she paid for the so called gift card. And which gift card she was talking about?
From what the pic looks like, they must be WM giftcards bought off the rack.
It’s possible her case may be under no win, no fee terms so she’s not paying lawyer’s fees right now. If the law firm wins against ‘Goliath’, they may get a huge share of the pie and the plaintiff may get a little share. But IANAL, just conjecture on my end.
I’m not a fan of overly litigious conduct but this is just absurd by Walmart. They are selling defective products, which were compromised while under their care, and refusing to reimburse – simple as that.
Hilarious. Wal-Mart would then be a victim as well, if they re-imburse. After reading though most of these posts, I have come to the realization that y’all are dumb.
If you think Visa gift cards are secured in packaging you’re wrong. Criminals steal all info from VGC packages and put it back like it was never opened. Happened to me and my friends multiple times – it is easy to identify such cards once you open package and check out funny looking glue on back of VGC – specially bought from Safeway.
I have had the same problem and I stopped using Walmart because I have the like I said the same problem well and then started using Walgreens and CVS and exactly the same problem so I mean this could be fuel for the fire but I just try not to use the the cards anymore. And with these cards you’re basically stuck because there’s no no guarantee or no warranty to get your money back so I probably lost about$1, 000 on these cards because it’s like I am I buy them I activate them then before I can get to the car to make a photograph of them to send it to friends of mine that might be down in different countries on mission trips they have already been redeemed. So I went to Western Union to send money and the problem with them is if you don’t get the name exactly correct there policy is that they can’t change name because then it becomes a different person and you can’t then have the person you know with their ID go to him to get their money out I’ve had that happen to me four times and I’m very pissed at Western Union for doing that so I mean you’re sort of locked out I mean I would with those four basically what happened was I had to get a refund or a cancel the transaction well they want their money right away but in their policy I guess they have 7 business days to give me my money back so if it’s something very important that needs to go you’re sort of like between rock and a hard place because you can’t then get your money back for it’s usually at 7 days and all these places are starting to sort of like scam not really scam but have giving the clients are their customers problems. whoever that’s actually suing these different paint different companies I would love to the jump on the bandwagon and see what you know to try to help them out in order to help me even though help myself out.
TL;DR like I said…so I mean… so I went…it’s like I am… I mean… sort of like… GET TO THE POINT!!!!
If you meant you bought Visa GCs at WAG or CVS to send to your friends on a mission in other countries, they are of NO USE to them since the GCs can only be used IN THE USA. They’re not scamming you, I know most WAG/CVS cashiers tell me while purchasing vanilla GCs all sales are final and if there’s an issue, deal with Incomm, the card issuer.
As to your WU woes, just make sure you get the correct name and spelling of person you’re sending to and you should not have a problem. It’s not a scam if you’re aware of their policy they won’t allow a change of name. It’s one thing to make a mistake once but in your case, happened four times? Seems to me that you should know what you’re doing and understand WU terms and conditions and don’t use their service if you don’t agree.
Anyone ever wondered if these are insider jobs or insiders colluding with criminals?
I hope this suit prospers because walmartdotcom does not help with issues of their store GCs getting hacked. I’ve experienced buying a GC out of state while on a road trip where funds were used at a WM I’ve never been to. I got no help from the store I bought the GC nor walmartdotcom. When I tried to use card at the Murphy’s station, it only had 0.95 when I have my receipt that I loaded $30.
My Best Buy gift card bought on ebay from Paypal was hacked and stolen. I emailed them but they don’t want to refund since it’s been like two years since I bought it!
Hard lesson. Sorry to hear. Gift cards are just not secure. Spend them quickly or don’t but them at all.
From what I’ve seen lately, most stores have an official policy of no refunds on gift cards.
I’ve had this exact same thing happen to me at Wal-Mart, twice! When asked fir a refund, with the receipt, customer service told me that it had nothing to do with them, & in NO way could they refund a gift card..done buying gift cards…nothing is safe in this world anymore!