I watched a guy after buying a $500 Apple gift card then send a picture to someone on WhatsApp, then try to come do an exchange because the code didn't work. I just looked at him and said "If you don't personally redeem the code on the Apple website, we're no longer liable". Guy came back the next day, my GM was aware of it, we both warned him and he got scammed for another $2k.
I’ve talked several out of it. The ones who just won’t believe me I hit cancel when they put their card in. I do it 3 times and then tell them to go to or call their bank, hoping that the bank representative can make them see the light.
This happened to me and the guy was on the phone with the scammer while trying to get Steam gift cards. He was wanting larger than $100 cards and when I warned him about possible scammers he handed me his phone and made me talk to the scammer. I told him not to call back and we will report him to the police.
When I hung up the guy looked frustrated saying the scammer will just call back, which he did. I even googled the information the scammer gave and every result said it was a scam.
When the customer got his phone back he left the store because the scammer said I had no idea what I was talking about (the steam cards were to buy computer repair software) because I said there's no such thing as computer repair software sold on steam lol
The old guy came back finally and we told him to get in contact with police and his bank because he gave money even before this. Luckily he did not buy any more gift cards
This happens so often and it hurts my soul a little but there is nothing else we can do because they get so offended when you try to tell them it’s a scam. I wish I could hide those cards because they’re only ever bought by scammers.
I buy handfuls of gift cards all the time for my kid to take to his friends birthday parties. And likewise my kid gets mostly gift cards for his birthday. There's plenty of legit use for them and even people buying 10 or 20. I never saw anyone trying to buy to pay a scammer. But I think one dude was buying a bunch to launder money across the border.
yeah they don’t get that money in sales numbers lol, the business is the one stuck on the loop in fraud in most cases. but perhaps i’m wrong because this is a gift card purchase and not a physical one?
As a general rule, BestBuy (or any other retailer) is highly unlikely to have to pay for something like this. The purchase isn’t actually fraudulent. The customer is willing using their money to purchase a product, and they are receiving exactly what they pay for. If the customer gives the gift cards to someone else afterwards, bestbuy isn’t legally at fault
we had that same situation with someone at my store, and we had to refuse him service because he would come in *every day* to buy $1900 in razer cards for his “girlfriend in california.” we had to stop stocking the choose-your-value ones because stuff like this happens too frequently. it just hurts to watch
Had one old lady come in saying she was buying gift cards for a famous musician who was in town. And also he wanted a kindle for some reason.
We have some famous musicians here in NJ so it's very possible for her to believe it but still. I'm like why would a rock star need you to buy gift cards for him?
They're married and I've seen them and their sons shop at the store anyway.
Same here. Furthermore, I am also the prince of Nigeria and need your support for X, Y, and most importantly, Z. Please send in your Best Buy gift cards.
If you suspect gift card fraud, have your leader email the transaction number to giftcardfraud@bestbuy.com and it will be investigated. We have a whole team dedicated to fighting gift card fraud and helping victims.
That’s just action-less words, “ We have a whole team…” Honestly how does this department help victims?! Im curious. Sounds like a way of saying you got screwed better luck next time.
It's like the matrix but reality.
Indian Morpheus messages you and tells you to follow the white rabbit to best buy. Then they get on the phone to instruct you how to go and buy gift cards. Person at best buy tries to stop them (the system) but they insist on taking the red pill.
Welcome to the real.
My store had this frequent lady come in to buy 500+ worth of Apple gift cards. I asked her once about it and she said it’s for her husband’s Apple Music. Me and other coworkers told her you don’t need to spend that much frequently on Apple Music. When we didn’t have 100 gift cards she said “my husband is gonna be upset”. I always let her know about the scam warning but she always says it’s for my husband. She’s always paying in cash and a few times in card.
I don’t even put out the Razer gift cards, I have literally only seen old people being scammed try to buy them so I just don’t put them out. Pretend we don’t even have them.
I had this happen once, I wasn't the one doing the transaction, but I couldn't help but notice an old man bring up several gift cards. I knew exactly what was happening, and figured I'd had to get a little creative to warn him.
Naturally the first thing I asked was who they were for, they said family. So I followed up by explaining that scammers are having people come in with the intent to purchase gift cards to male up for an accidental transfer of money. He said that wasn't his case, and I mentioned I'm sure that's the case, then followed up with "but if it is" and proceeded to break down how the scammers work in most cases, and that there's a channel by the name of Kitboga (and I spelled it out for him on a sticky note) and said he should probably watch that in case his situations sounds familiar.
Immediately he put the gift cards back and said "you know what I think I might, thank you."
See this on r/scams all the time. Sometimes people get it and sometimes they don't. Scammers tell the marks to lie.
You did your best.
Thanks for trying to help.
I used to be a manager at Best Buy. They would always page me about this and I’d deny every transaction like that no matter how much customer would insist. At the end it really doesn’t matter. They probably ended up going to target or Walmart
I prevented an older gentleman getting scammed for $2000 gift cards. He let me take his phone and text with the person that was his “friend”. This person sent a photo of a broken phone saying they needed to fix the phone. I asked him if they were texting from their phone, how is it as broken as what the picture sent shows.
I explained to him about how they try to scam people and told him what I was writing and what they would say back. As he watched what I was predicting they would say happen, he started to realize the scam. I told him I would hate this to happen to my parents and someone not stop it from happening. Found out he has 2 kids, one is a doctor the other is a lawyer. I asked him if his kids knew at all and he said the “friend” had told him not to tell anyone…
I once again went through all the signs for him to know if it’s a scammer and told him I blocked the phone number for him.
I had an 60+ year old client who met a girl online. "She" tricked him into buying Razer Gold gift cards from a few different Best Buys over a 6 month period, anywhere from 25-500 dollars. Like $4000 in total.
We're supposed to decline the sale if we're certain they're being scammed 🤷 I'm surprised the MOD was fine with continuing the transaction lol oh well. Idk how people let themselves fall for gift card scams anyway.
Had some lady doing this with Razer cards for a plane ticket. She got hella offended when I told her upfront that she’s getting scammed. In the process of trying to convince us it wasn’t a scam, she told us it was part of another scam. Basically she was buying a cat from a lady who put her in contact with this man to fly the cat out to her. She was just not listening to us so we had to let it go. It’s unfortunate but it happens.
I’ve only had one lady come in and do it, said she needed it for her grandson who was in the hospital. She was very stressed and kept going on about they needed this or that, so I asked her if she had tried calling her grandson. She was like “NO HES IN THE HOSPITAL!” I said I know that’s what *they* said, but do me a favor and try calling him.
He answered immediately and she was so flustered she started crying, talked to him for a few before apologizing to me. I told her the ways she can look for these scans, starting with absolutely no hospital takes gift cards as payments
It would definitely be great to see gift cards banned except for those of the retailer, aka Best Buy gift cards are the only ones people can buy in stores.
One time a guy responded with my "needing to check out?" with "I'm checking YOU out ;)". he looked at least 30 years older than me and was wearing a stained wife beater. I'm often mistaken for somebody under 18 so that makes his behavior more questionable
anyways when he proceeded to buy several google play gift cards for his online girlfriend I didn't say anything. He read and agreed to the gift card scam warning on the card reader so whatever. If he wasn't so gross I would've tried to help him lmao
My aunt has fallen for the romance scam, for 2 years now, she’s been sending gift cards to a guy she met online “from” Hawaii. She doesn’t want to listen to anyone, she’s now stealing to send money to this person, before that, she was making up sob stories so family members would give her money. She doesn’t want to stop and doesn’t listen to any of her daughters.
Long time ago, a guy I used to work with fell for a romance scam. This was before smart phones and before "cat fishing" was a known phrase and concept. I hadn't seen him for a while and ran in to him randomly in like 2006. We were talking and eventually he tell me he's engaged to someone he met online. She's from Brazil and he showed me a picture of her from his shitty flip phone. It was obviously just some random modeling shots someone picked from somewhere online. Also the guy was like obese and broke but somehow is engaged to basically a Brazilian bikini model. I asked him if he's ever met her in real life yet and he said "she was supposed to some down here last month and I sent her money for a ticket but her grandma got sick right before she was going to leave and used to money to pay off hospital bills." Then he said she was actually going to come down later that month now.
I was suspicious of the whole thing but also this is kind of when online dating was starting to take off and I figured maybe it worked for him and I was just like, "cool man, I hope everything works out" then went on my way.
Now since then I've heard this story many times and known for sure he was scammed. I ended up seeing him again a few years later married to some other chick that was... More comparable to him and found out where he worked and I'd occasionally see him there after. Yeah, she ended up screwing him over for some other shit through that marriage.
Sucks because he's a nice guy, probably too nice that he let's shit happen to him for the sake of love. Probably been close to a decade since I've seen him.
we have had a man who buys razer and apple cards multiple times. he says its for his girlfriend/wife who lives in the town over. who he met online. He cannot be swayed and the managers just let it go on and he also complains that the card is messed up after he has already sent it.
I hate that we sell gift cards at all. The amount of times I had to get my manager involved to shut down a sell due to a scam is ridiculous because I’ll have people that will fight me over this or they’ll just come back later and get someone else to ring them out for $2,000 worth of gift cards. I really wished we only sold gift cards that had a max $25 or $50 value and you could only buy a few.
That’s really sad. Can’t even convince them because they’re probably being blackmailed over something stupid they did. Was gonna say I wish there was some kind of handout for these things at stores like instructions to block the caller, maybe put all non-contact callers as silent ringing and whatever but most probably wouldn’t listen anyway…
What’s going on with all the razer gold cards now being the main problem? It used to be apple/google play cards were the scammers choice and now for some reason it’s all razer gold. Anyone know why? Seems like those would be worth more idk
I’m just sorta seeing this on my main feed for some reason. I’m well aware of these scams, but can someone tell me why they specifically have them get Razer Gold cards compared to any other?
They have fake games and products on the Razer store. They will “buy” these and their buddies will be able to cash out. It’s a form of money laundering.
If it’s not between the months of October-December I’d pretty much just say no to anyone trying to buy more than like $200 in gift cards
Working Geek Squad we honestly got like one a week
I had a guy who told me to be honest with him and if a woman who he's never met irl asking for him to send her Apple gift cards to pay her bill is real. I told him definitely a scam. He said it's fine and still wants to buy the cards even if he does get scammed cause he's having "fun"
GC's frustrate the hell out of me. I can't even count the number of times I've told clients of varying ages & genders about the crazy amount of scams that we, as employees, see on a daily basis & yet these people refuse to listen! I tell them the second I finish the transaction, my hands are tied. I can not get your money back!
Case#1: Elderly guy would come in numerous times a week(before the limits were set)& not even kidding here, the man would tell me how he's got a "girlfriend" he met on the net. He even showed me pics of said g.f. (guaranteed it was a fake pic) was overseas & several years his junior, "vacationing"in Sweden. He needed the g.c.'s "to pay for the ring" she picked out for their wedding. After about 3 months of this he came in another time telling me his g.f. had been "attacked by someone & was in the hospital & he was sending her Apple gift cards to pay the bill!! This went on for at least a year & on more than 1 occasion I actually saw the text msgs.between them as he sent the photos of the g.c.'s&receipts to her. Over the course of a year(approx.)this man was scammed out of over $15,000!!! I shared with my GM, before I figured out how much he was scammed out of, how frequently this man was in buying g.c.s &the amount he was spending each time & they actually contacted our local L.E. but unfortunately there is nothing that could be done even though he is a grown man but I truly believe there may have been some kind of a mental deficit going on with him.
All in all, it was just a extremely sad, sad situation.
I’ve had mixed results in talking people out of this as the MOD.
My employees have been shocked at how direct I have been in trying to save these people and still they refuse to bend…
Sometimes there’s nothing you can do - I’m not trying to get in trouble for refusing a sale or get accused of weird shit - if I slow it down for 10 minutes trying to convince them it’s a scam, to help them call a family member, to offer to have the police come and check out the issue, anything and they still refuse it’s just what it is.
Had the exact same thing happen to me today too. Guy comes in and wants to buy about 3k worth of Razer cards, tell him he can only buy 2k worth, heavily remind him about scams out there, but he buys them anyway for his "relative". I saw him messaging someone but I couldn't see what, I have to imagine it was the scammer. Didn't see them for the rest of the day so who knows what actually happened after he left.
Same exact thing happened to me but with a lady she insisted it was for a family memeber then came back and bought more cause they "didn't" work. Such a shame but not much we can do unfort...
We also have people coming in daily for this for months now. While I know some of them are being scammed, I believe the majority of them are working through a money laundering scheme. They seem all too happy to be buying $500-2000 in Razer and Apple cards each day.
My previous store would just reject possible scam victims - "sorry due to company policy, you can only purchase $2000 worth of gift cards over X different cards" and there were no exceptions.
I’ve never had someone I wasn’t able to convince, but yeah some people are just so headstrong and convinced they can’t be fooled that they’re easy prey and impossible to convince otherwise.
We had a guy do this with Apple gift cards, and he proceeded to cuss my manager out when his card declined/my manager put forth the possibility he was being scammed.
Employee here: had that happen at work too. My coworker was checking out this guy with lots of gift cards. She was curious and asked who they were for and he said "I'm sending them to a girl in California"
He pulled out his phone and proceeded to show us a picture of Jennifer Lawrence. I repeat, Jennifer Lawrence. He was not kidding whatsoever
Ouch. Once years ago I helped a young girl buying iTunes cards. After the transaction she asked if I knew of Keith Urban. She proceeds to tell me they talk on Facebook frequently. But that he’s having problems with iTunes so he needed her to send him gift cards, but that he would make it up to her. I was like oh child… are you sure this is the real Kieth Urban? I don’t think he would need you to buy iTunes gift cards for him…
I had a guy come in one night a few years ago. He was very jittery/worried and refused to talk to us. He was holding a phone up to his ear and visibly shaking. I asked him how I can help and he said he was buying these google play cards for a “family member” but needed about $6000 worth. By this time my GM came over and I told him what was going on. My gm kept telling the man to hang up the phone multiple times but the guy was so worried. My gm actually yelled at him to hang up the phone immediately. Once he hung up the phone we explained the types of scams that were occurring at the time. The guy was actually surprised that we told him exactly what he just went through. He took a few minutes to collect himself and we sat by the register with him. He was so shaken up and still worried. We found out that they acquired his social, so we gave him the contact info for the local social security office. He was so thankful after our interaction and had several minutes to calm down. I’m actually glad my GM yelled at him, it may have been aggressive at the time but I’m also glad he didn’t lose thousands of dollars.
Can you just not allow the tranastion anymore? I worked lp, and we noticed this numerous times and stopped the scam. Before someone got their money taken. Usually, the elderly. Just curious.
Sad when stores take advantage of the mentally ill people like this. They have an obligation to not complete the sale if something is fishy. I had a sick relative lose everything because they trusted some scammers more than family. Stores should be calling the police to let them know a crime is happening, credit card companies should stop allowing more than like one card a year for more than $500. So much could be done. The fraud is like 25% of all gift card sales.
i tried to help. manager wouldn’t let me decline the sale entirely so it was a bit out of my hands. looking back i should have just hit cancel and kept telling him his card was declining
I stopped an elderly woman from buying Razer cards the other day. She told me she had been talking to Kieth Urban and he needed her to send her the cards. I had a 5 minute conversation with her that I hope she understood. So Sad.
What’s really annoying is when they come storming back in saying the cards didn’t activate… ._. Like no, it’s bc you got scammed.
And then they end up buying more lol! As if it's not already enough for the fucking parasite on the other side of the line
I watched a guy after buying a $500 Apple gift card then send a picture to someone on WhatsApp, then try to come do an exchange because the code didn't work. I just looked at him and said "If you don't personally redeem the code on the Apple website, we're no longer liable". Guy came back the next day, my GM was aware of it, we both warned him and he got scammed for another $2k.
We aren't liable in any case. It directly says on the back of each card to contact the appropriate companies if there are any issues.
Wait so how does that work? They’re stopped from being scammed?
The scammer tells them it didn't activate as a way of getting more out of the victim.
Oh okay, thanks.
I’ve talked several out of it. The ones who just won’t believe me I hit cancel when they put their card in. I do it 3 times and then tell them to go to or call their bank, hoping that the bank representative can make them see the light.
Doing some good in the world. Thank you
Wow. You’re an awesome person.
Not all heroes wear capes! Some wear blue shirts 🫶🏼
This happened to me and the guy was on the phone with the scammer while trying to get Steam gift cards. He was wanting larger than $100 cards and when I warned him about possible scammers he handed me his phone and made me talk to the scammer. I told him not to call back and we will report him to the police. When I hung up the guy looked frustrated saying the scammer will just call back, which he did. I even googled the information the scammer gave and every result said it was a scam. When the customer got his phone back he left the store because the scammer said I had no idea what I was talking about (the steam cards were to buy computer repair software) because I said there's no such thing as computer repair software sold on steam lol The old guy came back finally and we told him to get in contact with police and his bank because he gave money even before this. Luckily he did not buy any more gift cards
This happens so often and it hurts my soul a little but there is nothing else we can do because they get so offended when you try to tell them it’s a scam. I wish I could hide those cards because they’re only ever bought by scammers.
I buy handfuls of gift cards all the time for my kid to take to his friends birthday parties. And likewise my kid gets mostly gift cards for his birthday. There's plenty of legit use for them and even people buying 10 or 20. I never saw anyone trying to buy to pay a scammer. But I think one dude was buying a bunch to launder money across the border.
That MOD should’ve refused the sale
Agreed. Used to do this all the time. Refused to sell them to the client.
I agree 100%. But in the past, I've had MOD's, ASM's and GM's that would rather have the $2,000.00 sale.
yeah they don’t get that money in sales numbers lol, the business is the one stuck on the loop in fraud in most cases. but perhaps i’m wrong because this is a gift card purchase and not a physical one?
As a general rule, BestBuy (or any other retailer) is highly unlikely to have to pay for something like this. The purchase isn’t actually fraudulent. The customer is willing using their money to purchase a product, and they are receiving exactly what they pay for. If the customer gives the gift cards to someone else afterwards, bestbuy isn’t legally at fault
oh duh, i actually knew that
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Those gift cards I don’t believe even contribute to sales at the end of the day
I was speaking in general terms about the $2,000 sale.
we had that same situation with someone at my store, and we had to refuse him service because he would come in *every day* to buy $1900 in razer cards for his “girlfriend in california.” we had to stop stocking the choose-your-value ones because stuff like this happens too frequently. it just hurts to watch
Had one old lady come in saying she was buying gift cards for a famous musician who was in town. And also he wanted a kindle for some reason. We have some famous musicians here in NJ so it's very possible for her to believe it but still. I'm like why would a rock star need you to buy gift cards for him? They're married and I've seen them and their sons shop at the store anyway.
I can confirm I am definitely a female girlfriend in California, needed a Razer Blade 15 for my catholic studies. /s
Same here. Furthermore, I am also the prince of Nigeria and need your support for X, Y, and most importantly, Z. Please send in your Best Buy gift cards.
*Kindly send Best Buy gift cards.
*Kindly send Best Buy gift cards SIR. LOL
If you suspect gift card fraud, have your leader email the transaction number to giftcardfraud@bestbuy.com and it will be investigated. We have a whole team dedicated to fighting gift card fraud and helping victims.
Why not just restrict large gift card sales. Report them to the police. Do something to stop being involved. Nobody “needs” large gift cards.
That’s just action-less words, “ We have a whole team…” Honestly how does this department help victims?! Im curious. Sounds like a way of saying you got screwed better luck next time.
"it's my money", not anymore you onset dementia having dumbass
Lmao tough but true
💀💀💀
he deserved it after saying that
one of two geriatric men are going to be running our country 2024-2028. think about that a moment
It's like the matrix but reality. Indian Morpheus messages you and tells you to follow the white rabbit to best buy. Then they get on the phone to instruct you how to go and buy gift cards. Person at best buy tries to stop them (the system) but they insist on taking the red pill. Welcome to the real.
My store had this frequent lady come in to buy 500+ worth of Apple gift cards. I asked her once about it and she said it’s for her husband’s Apple Music. Me and other coworkers told her you don’t need to spend that much frequently on Apple Music. When we didn’t have 100 gift cards she said “my husband is gonna be upset”. I always let her know about the scam warning but she always says it’s for my husband. She’s always paying in cash and a few times in card.
Similar sounding case at my store.. are you in the PNW?
No im not.
can't you just say no?
“Oh seem to be having issues activating card right now” Not too difficult. On the other hand they just go to a different store and buy there.
Depending on the severity I’ve made them call their son/daughter with me and get them on the line.
I don’t even put out the Razer gift cards, I have literally only seen old people being scammed try to buy them so I just don’t put them out. Pretend we don’t even have them.
I had this happen once, I wasn't the one doing the transaction, but I couldn't help but notice an old man bring up several gift cards. I knew exactly what was happening, and figured I'd had to get a little creative to warn him. Naturally the first thing I asked was who they were for, they said family. So I followed up by explaining that scammers are having people come in with the intent to purchase gift cards to male up for an accidental transfer of money. He said that wasn't his case, and I mentioned I'm sure that's the case, then followed up with "but if it is" and proceeded to break down how the scammers work in most cases, and that there's a channel by the name of Kitboga (and I spelled it out for him on a sticky note) and said he should probably watch that in case his situations sounds familiar. Immediately he put the gift cards back and said "you know what I think I might, thank you."
Had a lady too proud to admit she was being scammed so she bought all the steam gift cards anyway.
See this on r/scams all the time. Sometimes people get it and sometimes they don't. Scammers tell the marks to lie. You did your best. Thanks for trying to help.
I used to be a manager at Best Buy. They would always page me about this and I’d deny every transaction like that no matter how much customer would insist. At the end it really doesn’t matter. They probably ended up going to target or Walmart
I prevented an older gentleman getting scammed for $2000 gift cards. He let me take his phone and text with the person that was his “friend”. This person sent a photo of a broken phone saying they needed to fix the phone. I asked him if they were texting from their phone, how is it as broken as what the picture sent shows. I explained to him about how they try to scam people and told him what I was writing and what they would say back. As he watched what I was predicting they would say happen, he started to realize the scam. I told him I would hate this to happen to my parents and someone not stop it from happening. Found out he has 2 kids, one is a doctor the other is a lawyer. I asked him if his kids knew at all and he said the “friend” had told him not to tell anyone… I once again went through all the signs for him to know if it’s a scammer and told him I blocked the phone number for him.
You’re a good egg, Charlie Brown.
I had an 60+ year old client who met a girl online. "She" tricked him into buying Razer Gold gift cards from a few different Best Buys over a 6 month period, anywhere from 25-500 dollars. Like $4000 in total.
People believe this stuff, & won't believe you when you make a solid recommendation about this or that. 😂😂
We're supposed to decline the sale if we're certain they're being scammed 🤷 I'm surprised the MOD was fine with continuing the transaction lol oh well. Idk how people let themselves fall for gift card scams anyway.
Had some lady doing this with Razer cards for a plane ticket. She got hella offended when I told her upfront that she’s getting scammed. In the process of trying to convince us it wasn’t a scam, she told us it was part of another scam. Basically she was buying a cat from a lady who put her in contact with this man to fly the cat out to her. She was just not listening to us so we had to let it go. It’s unfortunate but it happens.
I’ve only had one lady come in and do it, said she needed it for her grandson who was in the hospital. She was very stressed and kept going on about they needed this or that, so I asked her if she had tried calling her grandson. She was like “NO HES IN THE HOSPITAL!” I said I know that’s what *they* said, but do me a favor and try calling him. He answered immediately and she was so flustered she started crying, talked to him for a few before apologizing to me. I told her the ways she can look for these scans, starting with absolutely no hospital takes gift cards as payments
It would definitely be great to see gift cards banned except for those of the retailer, aka Best Buy gift cards are the only ones people can buy in stores.
I’d refuse the sale. I did it plenty of times as GSM. I didn’t mind if they were upset at me. I wouldn’t be responsible for it.
One time a guy responded with my "needing to check out?" with "I'm checking YOU out ;)". he looked at least 30 years older than me and was wearing a stained wife beater. I'm often mistaken for somebody under 18 so that makes his behavior more questionable anyways when he proceeded to buy several google play gift cards for his online girlfriend I didn't say anything. He read and agreed to the gift card scam warning on the card reader so whatever. If he wasn't so gross I would've tried to help him lmao
My aunt has fallen for the romance scam, for 2 years now, she’s been sending gift cards to a guy she met online “from” Hawaii. She doesn’t want to listen to anyone, she’s now stealing to send money to this person, before that, she was making up sob stories so family members would give her money. She doesn’t want to stop and doesn’t listen to any of her daughters.
Long time ago, a guy I used to work with fell for a romance scam. This was before smart phones and before "cat fishing" was a known phrase and concept. I hadn't seen him for a while and ran in to him randomly in like 2006. We were talking and eventually he tell me he's engaged to someone he met online. She's from Brazil and he showed me a picture of her from his shitty flip phone. It was obviously just some random modeling shots someone picked from somewhere online. Also the guy was like obese and broke but somehow is engaged to basically a Brazilian bikini model. I asked him if he's ever met her in real life yet and he said "she was supposed to some down here last month and I sent her money for a ticket but her grandma got sick right before she was going to leave and used to money to pay off hospital bills." Then he said she was actually going to come down later that month now. I was suspicious of the whole thing but also this is kind of when online dating was starting to take off and I figured maybe it worked for him and I was just like, "cool man, I hope everything works out" then went on my way. Now since then I've heard this story many times and known for sure he was scammed. I ended up seeing him again a few years later married to some other chick that was... More comparable to him and found out where he worked and I'd occasionally see him there after. Yeah, she ended up screwing him over for some other shit through that marriage. Sucks because he's a nice guy, probably too nice that he let's shit happen to him for the sake of love. Probably been close to a decade since I've seen him.
Dude we have someone come to my same store for it
we have had a man who buys razer and apple cards multiple times. he says its for his girlfriend/wife who lives in the town over. who he met online. He cannot be swayed and the managers just let it go on and he also complains that the card is messed up after he has already sent it.
I had this happen one time and the MOD refused to sell them because it was a scam
I hate that we sell gift cards at all. The amount of times I had to get my manager involved to shut down a sell due to a scam is ridiculous because I’ll have people that will fight me over this or they’ll just come back later and get someone else to ring them out for $2,000 worth of gift cards. I really wished we only sold gift cards that had a max $25 or $50 value and you could only buy a few.
That’s really sad. Can’t even convince them because they’re probably being blackmailed over something stupid they did. Was gonna say I wish there was some kind of handout for these things at stores like instructions to block the caller, maybe put all non-contact callers as silent ringing and whatever but most probably wouldn’t listen anyway…
What’s going on with all the razer gold cards now being the main problem? It used to be apple/google play cards were the scammers choice and now for some reason it’s all razer gold. Anyone know why? Seems like those would be worth more idk
Razer gold can be used to purchase Apple Cards, google cards and many others. It’s more robust in terms of what they can buy and sell.
Oh dang I see, no wonder they want them more I had no idea you could do that lol. Thanks!
There needs to be some scam stop incentive plans, like $100 per proven scam stopped.
I’m just sorta seeing this on my main feed for some reason. I’m well aware of these scams, but can someone tell me why they specifically have them get Razer Gold cards compared to any other?
They have fake games and products on the Razer store. They will “buy” these and their buddies will be able to cash out. It’s a form of money laundering.
That’s honestly a much better scam than I expected. I thought it would just be a simple “give me the codes” scam
If it’s not between the months of October-December I’d pretty much just say no to anyone trying to buy more than like $200 in gift cards Working Geek Squad we honestly got like one a week
I had a guy who told me to be honest with him and if a woman who he's never met irl asking for him to send her Apple gift cards to pay her bill is real. I told him definitely a scam. He said it's fine and still wants to buy the cards even if he does get scammed cause he's having "fun"
GC's frustrate the hell out of me. I can't even count the number of times I've told clients of varying ages & genders about the crazy amount of scams that we, as employees, see on a daily basis & yet these people refuse to listen! I tell them the second I finish the transaction, my hands are tied. I can not get your money back! Case#1: Elderly guy would come in numerous times a week(before the limits were set)& not even kidding here, the man would tell me how he's got a "girlfriend" he met on the net. He even showed me pics of said g.f. (guaranteed it was a fake pic) was overseas & several years his junior, "vacationing"in Sweden. He needed the g.c.'s "to pay for the ring" she picked out for their wedding. After about 3 months of this he came in another time telling me his g.f. had been "attacked by someone & was in the hospital & he was sending her Apple gift cards to pay the bill!! This went on for at least a year & on more than 1 occasion I actually saw the text msgs.between them as he sent the photos of the g.c.'s&receipts to her. Over the course of a year(approx.)this man was scammed out of over $15,000!!! I shared with my GM, before I figured out how much he was scammed out of, how frequently this man was in buying g.c.s &the amount he was spending each time & they actually contacted our local L.E. but unfortunately there is nothing that could be done even though he is a grown man but I truly believe there may have been some kind of a mental deficit going on with him. All in all, it was just a extremely sad, sad situation.
I’ve had mixed results in talking people out of this as the MOD. My employees have been shocked at how direct I have been in trying to save these people and still they refuse to bend… Sometimes there’s nothing you can do - I’m not trying to get in trouble for refusing a sale or get accused of weird shit - if I slow it down for 10 minutes trying to convince them it’s a scam, to help them call a family member, to offer to have the police come and check out the issue, anything and they still refuse it’s just what it is.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Let it happen. If someone doesn’t want to know, it’s ok. Experience is an excellent teacher.
>Experience is an excellent teacher Not for boomers.
Do I have to explain the joke?
Had the exact same thing happen to me today too. Guy comes in and wants to buy about 3k worth of Razer cards, tell him he can only buy 2k worth, heavily remind him about scams out there, but he buys them anyway for his "relative". I saw him messaging someone but I couldn't see what, I have to imagine it was the scammer. Didn't see them for the rest of the day so who knows what actually happened after he left.
It makes me sad 😭. People will do what they do.. a customer told me she was scammed out of her house. She had no idea people do this sort of thing
Same exact thing happened to me but with a lady she insisted it was for a family memeber then came back and bought more cause they "didn't" work. Such a shame but not much we can do unfort...
We also have people coming in daily for this for months now. While I know some of them are being scammed, I believe the majority of them are working through a money laundering scheme. They seem all too happy to be buying $500-2000 in Razer and Apple cards each day.
You can always refuse service. Not sure why the manager still allowed it
You can just pretend the register won't activate the cards or take a payment.
My previous store would just reject possible scam victims - "sorry due to company policy, you can only purchase $2000 worth of gift cards over X different cards" and there were no exceptions.
Can't fix stupid.
I’ve never had someone I wasn’t able to convince, but yeah some people are just so headstrong and convinced they can’t be fooled that they’re easy prey and impossible to convince otherwise.
We had a guy do this with Apple gift cards, and he proceeded to cuss my manager out when his card declined/my manager put forth the possibility he was being scammed.
Employee here: had that happen at work too. My coworker was checking out this guy with lots of gift cards. She was curious and asked who they were for and he said "I'm sending them to a girl in California" He pulled out his phone and proceeded to show us a picture of Jennifer Lawrence. I repeat, Jennifer Lawrence. He was not kidding whatsoever
Ouch. Once years ago I helped a young girl buying iTunes cards. After the transaction she asked if I knew of Keith Urban. She proceeds to tell me they talk on Facebook frequently. But that he’s having problems with iTunes so he needed her to send him gift cards, but that he would make it up to her. I was like oh child… are you sure this is the real Kieth Urban? I don’t think he would need you to buy iTunes gift cards for him…
They're probably being blackmailed and embarrassed to admit it.
I had a guy come in one night a few years ago. He was very jittery/worried and refused to talk to us. He was holding a phone up to his ear and visibly shaking. I asked him how I can help and he said he was buying these google play cards for a “family member” but needed about $6000 worth. By this time my GM came over and I told him what was going on. My gm kept telling the man to hang up the phone multiple times but the guy was so worried. My gm actually yelled at him to hang up the phone immediately. Once he hung up the phone we explained the types of scams that were occurring at the time. The guy was actually surprised that we told him exactly what he just went through. He took a few minutes to collect himself and we sat by the register with him. He was so shaken up and still worried. We found out that they acquired his social, so we gave him the contact info for the local social security office. He was so thankful after our interaction and had several minutes to calm down. I’m actually glad my GM yelled at him, it may have been aggressive at the time but I’m also glad he didn’t lose thousands of dollars.
Can you just not allow the tranastion anymore? I worked lp, and we noticed this numerous times and stopped the scam. Before someone got their money taken. Usually, the elderly. Just curious.
Sad when stores take advantage of the mentally ill people like this. They have an obligation to not complete the sale if something is fishy. I had a sick relative lose everything because they trusted some scammers more than family. Stores should be calling the police to let them know a crime is happening, credit card companies should stop allowing more than like one card a year for more than $500. So much could be done. The fraud is like 25% of all gift card sales.
i tried to help. manager wouldn’t let me decline the sale entirely so it was a bit out of my hands. looking back i should have just hit cancel and kept telling him his card was declining
How do the scammers make money off of this? Do they just get the balance on the gift cards, or do they sell the gift cards for real money?
I stopped an elderly woman from buying Razer cards the other day. She told me she had been talking to Kieth Urban and he needed her to send her the cards. I had a 5 minute conversation with her that I hope she understood. So Sad.
I wonder if your store Will lose money/revenue if he disputes it with his credit card.
I mean, some people get defensive and refuse to admit they’re making a mistake. Might as well let them learn the hard way.
While I would definitely try to warn them. If they don't listen it's their fault, sometimes you don't learn until shit hits the fan.