Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have joined in implementing changes to their gift cards systems to help avoid scams and fraud. The changes were spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro in partnership with New Yorks AG Barbara Underwood. Here is the AG’s press release about the changes.
Specific measures mentioned in the press release (my commentary in the bullet points beneath):
- Reduction in Gift Card Limits – Retailers have significantly reduced both the monetary limit that can be placed on an individual gift card and the total amount that can be loaded onto gift cards during the same transaction.
- Specific measures mentioned in the news that Best Buy lowered their highest gift card denomination from $2,000 to $500, and Walmart dropped from $1,000 to $500. Target did not change its per-card limit ($2k).
- They also lowered the max you can buy in a single checkout: Walmart lowered from $5,000 to $1,000; Target lowered from $5,000 to $2,000; Best Buy lowered from $6,000 to $2,000.
- Totally understand the fraud prevention angle, but this is major (negative) news for resellers who utilize high gift cards all the time. I’m surprised I haven’t heard anyone mention this change. Maybe it hasn’t yet been implemented.
- Best Buy reduced the load amount of variable-load 3rd party gift cards to $200 back in May.
- Restrictions on Redemption of Retail Gift Cards for Other Gift Cards – Retailers placed new restrictions on the redemption of their retail gift cards for third party cards such as iTunes, Steam, or Google Play. Scammers often use the proceeds of fraud to purchase these third party cards because they can be resold on the black market.
- Indeed, gift card conversion at Best Buy died back in May. Not sure if this was related to the AG push. There might still be a few brands like XBOX for which conversion works.
- Â Gift card conversion at Target stores also died back in June.
- Last I know (from years ago), you can’t convert Walmart gift cards to Visa/MC/Amex gift cards. Not sure about third party. (This isn’t really lucrative regardless being that Walmart is from the most valuable gift cards available.)
- Enhanced Employee Training – Retailers have committed to enhancing employee training to help their employees identify the warning signs of gift card scams and warn potential victims when appropriate.
- In CVS they have a popup during the gift card checkout process to warn about such things. Wouldn’t be surprised to see other stores adapt the same.
Again, the lowering of the denomination at Walmart and Best Buy is a major negative change for resellers and shoppers, as well as the max per checkout.
