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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

Scammers target people who will fall for it; immigrants are already used to using gift cards for various things and reasons, so they are not as likely to immediately recognize it as a scam.

Which is why all gift card racks now have the "IRS IS NOT ASKING YOU FOR THIS GIFT CARD" signs on them; still not good enough.

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I guess another, more controversial regulatory path we could go down is:

Does the world really need gift cards? Do their few, anachronistic legit use cases outweigh the scam use cases? I personally believe gift cards are an overall net negative, even just considering the amount of plastic and packaging wasted on them, but add on the scam aspect, and we have to ask: should gift cards even be a thing?

If not gift cards, something else.

They're just currently the most effective "give me some numbers over the phone and now I have money" currently available.

It used to be Western Union, but it would move to something else.

Cash, money orders, PayPal, Zelle, any number of things have been used and will be used.

You’re absolutely right and I can tell you’ve given this topic much more thought than I have. Thanks!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gift-card-scam-get-your-money-b... says that gift card fraud was c. $200M in 2022, and that people have about $20 billion in unspent gift cards. Flow vs stock, but it seems like the majority of usage is legit. (Though maybe not for particular businesses).

> Do their few, anachronistic legit use cases outweigh the scam use cases?

Anachronistic? I still give these as small gifts all the time, and every grocery or department store I go in seems to have a rack of them at the checkout stand.

Often, they won't call them gift cards. They'll use things like "verification card." Newly arrived immigrants are often hopelessly confused already. They'll fall for fake job offers. These "jobs" will eventually require them to get gift cards. It can escalate into blackmail. The victim will have handed over all sorts of private information as part of the job application/interview.

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