Stripped Gift Card Scams: New Plastic, But Dead on Arrival

Gift cards are often easy to reach at store cash registers or on nearby racks. But that easy access opens the door for an unusual consumer rip-off, according to Bottom Line Personal. The problem: High-tech thieves enter stores and use small electronic scanners to read and lift credit codes from the magnetic strips on gift cards.

With the scanned and stolen information, digital thieves use the gift card data to finance fraudulent online shopping sprees, according to a report from scambusters.org. Meanwhile, unsuspecting gift card recipients are left with worthless plastic. One Wal-Mart shopper, for example, purchased gift cards for her grandchildren. But when the grandkids (eight of them) tried to use the cards for the first time, the family discovered that all of the cards had been drained of value, according to scambusters.org.

The store ultimately offered a refund and through a bit of detective work discovered how thieves had stolen the stored value dollar amounts from the gift cards.

Anti-theft tip: Avoid gift cards that are arranged on easy-access racks. Instead, request a card from the behind-the-counter stash. Save receipts and check in with your gift card recipients to make sure that all is well when they try to use the gift cards.

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Sharon Harvey Rosenberg is the author of The Frugal Duchess of South Beach: How to Live Well and Save Money... Anywhere!, which will be published in the Spring of 2008 by DPL Press.
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Previous Posts

Today:
3 Reasons to Admire Bill Parcells & Why I Read the Sports Section First
Yesterday:
How to Demand Less, Live Better: A Financial Salute to My Natural Hair
My Miracle Treatment: Vitamin B for Writer's Cramp or CTS
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Digg!

Out of Balance: Overdraft Fees Sting Consumers for $17.5 billion

Ouch. Overdraft fees are a major ripoff and banks are rigging the system to get more bang out of our bucks. That's the word from a new survey. This guest post features details:

"U.S. banks and credit unions are using abusive overdraft loans to generate $17.5 billion in fees each year, according to a major new study, entitled “Out of Balance,” from the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending (CRL).

The study finds that financial institutions are deliberately using overdraft systems that are designed to generate more overdrafts from customers, resulting in enormous fees for banks and credit unions.

“Some of our largest financial institutions are hiding behind a smokescreen of misleading terms and murky practices that encourage costly overdrafts,” said Eric Halperin, director of the CRL Washington, D.C. office. “Banks should protect customers’ funds, not plunder them with high fees and harmful practices.”

As the report explains: “In a system enormously out of balance, consumers pay $17.5 billion in fees for $15.8 billion in abusive overdraft loans.” In addition, the report finds that debit card overdrafts are now the single largest source of overdraft fees.The $17.5 billion in fees is an increase over CRL’s 2005 estimate of $10.3 billion in overdraft fees.

Unfair bank practices identified in the CRL report include:

(1) posting charges against a checking account quickly while intentionally delaying the posting of deposits,

(2) lowering account balances by re-ordering debits to clear higher-dollar items first, and

(3) failing to warn a customer during debit card point-of-sale or ATM transactions if they are about to overdraw their account so that they may cancel the transaction if they choose

The Center for Responsible Lending is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting home ownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. "

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Previous Posts
Today:
Guest Post: Don't Waste Money on Insurance for Rental Cars

Yesterday:
Hearts, Diamonds & Dollars: Tips from Warren Buffett & Cotton Threads
The Car Repair Fund & Other $$$ Goals for 2008
How to Sell Plasma TVs!?! Beware of Free CDs w/Biz & Tax Tips

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Digg

How to Sell Plasma TVs!?! Beware of Free CDs w/Biz & Tax Tips

How can you be ripped off by a free offer? Here's how: Out of curiosity, a friend of mine --a financial maven -- ordered a so-called free tape or CD touting tax tips. He just wanted the 411 on the financial information. Of course, the recording was free, but the shipping and handling charge was about $6. He ordered anyway.

Scene Two: The tape or CD arrived and it contained worthless information that anyone could discover on the Internet or at the library. Getting his money back was a problem. Technically, he did not make a purchase and the company only billed for shipping and handling, a service that arrived as promised.

Scene Three: The financial maven was tempted to dispute the inflated shipping charges. (It probably cost less than $1.50 to ship via the Post Office media rate.) But faced with the time obstacle of spending well over an hour (or more) to fight a $6 fee, our family friend opted to just write off the expense. He estimates that the bogus company must make a fortune on similar freebies.

I was reminded of his experience today, while listening to a radio. The Pitch: How to make money selling iPods, Plasma TVs via eBay. A Complete How-to! No risk! Free!! There was no mention of the shipping fees: But I can guess that S&H is high enough for the vendor to make a tidy profit on high volume sales, but low enough that ripped off consumers will just eat the loss.

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Previous Posts

Today:
Hearts, Diamonds & Dollars: Tips from Warren Buffett & Cotton Threads

The Car Repair Fund & Other $$$ Goals for 2008

Yesterday:

10 Little Budget Hits from Bankrate.com

How Worrying Costs Me $6,500 a Year

Airhead vs Workaholic: What I Learned about Money from Writing

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Digg!

Buried Under Cash: Funeral Video Highlights

This was your life? That's the new twist in funerals: DVD Highlights & The Final Clip! I smell a scam or at least another effort to take advantage of people at vulnerable moments.

The Scenario: A friend of mine recently went to a funeral and was surprised by the eulogy, which included a video clip of the deceased, who was actually cremated.

The highlight film: Admittedly, it was a very lovely tribute to the deceased person, with photos, videos, narration and music. It was sort of like the types of videos played at anniversaries, weddings and other big tribute events.

The Funeral Cost: $6,000, including the video ($1,000-plus)

My Friend's Assessment: "It was a nice video, but the family could have made it for themselves for a lot less." The family also faced pressure to buy an expensive urn and other perks that lifted the price of the funeral so high.

Some undertakers and funeral homes place a lot of pressure on bereaved families to spend heavily on caskets, urns and now videos to create beautiful tributes for the deceased. That's the observation, from a savvy friend of mine, who recently attended a funeral service.

The unspoken pitch: The amount of cash you spend equals the amount of love in your heart.

How great is the pressure:

At another funeral, my friend overheard this conversation in which a member of the bereaved family had voted against an inexpensive coffin because it "would pinch" the deceased.

Actually, the grief of the has been pinched.

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The Frugal Duchess Boutique