[HN Gopher] The gift card accountability sink
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The gift card accountability sink
Author : walterbell
Score : 52 points
Date : 2025-12-21 21:07 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bitsaboutmoney.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bitsaboutmoney.com)
| analogpixel wrote:
| > The American Association of Retired People (AARP, an advocacy
| non-profit for older adults) has paid for ads on podcasts I
| listen to. The ad made a claim which felt raspberry-worthy (in
| service of an important public service announcement), which they
| repeat in writing: Asking to be paid by gift card is always a
| scam.
|
| >Of course it isn't. Gift cards are a payments rail, and an
| enormous business independently of being a payments rail.
| Hundreds of firms will indeed ask you to pay them on gift cards!
|
| That's where I stopped reading. The author seems more interested
| in being contrarian for clicks than in giving practical advice.
| AARP is right here: being asked to pay by gift card is a major
| red flag, and unless you know the company personally, it's time
| to walk away.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| The author is an expert in the field of payments. What you call
| "being contrarian" is better called "speaking the truth".
| analogpixel wrote:
| Is he an expert in the field of old people being scammed out
| of lots of money? Telling non tech-savvy people that it's ok
| to listen to the nice man on the phone and send him a lot of
| gift cards?
| salawat wrote:
| I am also an expert in the field of payments. The only thing
| that makes gift cards stand out from other transaction media
| is there are many fewer guardrails around them money movement
| wise.
|
| I'd pretty much back up AARP on this one. Asking for payment
| by gift card should in the majority of cases put one on
| guard.
| jdlshore wrote:
| The article wasn't about the AARP. That was just the hook.
| The article is about what you just said: there are many
| fewer guardrails, and why.
| jawns wrote:
| I would call it "splitting hairs," which experts tend to do.
|
| The practical reality is acknowledged at the end of the post.
|
| Even if, technically speaking, using gift cards as a payments
| instrument is not a scam 100% of the time, anyone but a non-
| expert should behave as if it's 100%.
| aschla wrote:
| Agreed. It's more practical to tell seniors that all gift card
| requests are scams rather than teaching them to identify
| warning signs, since legitimate gift card payments are so rare.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Patrick very carefully declined to give examples of such
| legitimate yet debanked businesses. Presumably because they're
| all grey market stuff that sets off a whole other "wait, is
| that legal?" conversation.
|
| I have never seen a legitimate business asking for payment in
| gift cards. I've encountered the traditional tradesmen offering
| discounts for cash, though.
|
| Edit: I think he may actually be talking about businesses
| accepting payments in their own gift cards, which is so obvious
| that it's easy to forget. It's not a scam when Apple ask you to
| pay in Apple gift cards. It's just the only non scam such case.
| masfuerte wrote:
| Apple don't ask you to pay in Apple gift cards. They give you
| the option, but they are perfectly happy with a credit card.
| turtletontine wrote:
| I'm the kind of nerd who enjoys the surprising nitty gritty
| details, so I enjoyed the rest of the article and I'd recommend
| people read it.
|
| But I agree with you: the AARP is 100% right to be running PSAs
| like this. I'd be curious to hear more about how a shadow
| economy like this would/would not help unbanked people, which
| he implies but did not describe at all. But it certainly
| doesn't change the point that gift cards are an effective
| vehicle for fraud, and anytime someone asks to pay you (or
| especially you to pay them) in gift cards... your scam senses
| should tingle.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| One thing I didn't think Patrick quite explored enough: there's a
| big difference between someone _asking you_ to pay using a gift
| card and _you asking_ to pay using a gift card.
|
| The examples he gives are predominantly around giving people the
| _option_ , while the scams are very much pushing a requirement.
|
| If someone wants you to get a gift card to pay them, and won't
| take cash or credit? Scam. If you have a gift card already and
| someone's willing to accept it in lieu of cash? Probably no more
| likely to be a scam than any other vendor?
| cedilla wrote:
| I completely agree. I struggle to think of any legitimate
| business that would allow only gift cards. Maybe some privacy
| oriented VPN providers?
|
| In any case, I think this is almost a willful misunderstanding.
| Not only does it attack the straw man of "no one ever gets
| legitimately paid in gift cards", but literally the first
| counterexample, Paysafecard, isn't a gift card!
| andrewaylett wrote:
| It's interesting (to me, at least) to see the kinds of discounts
| that folk apply to gift card transactions. It's not unheard of
| for a colleague to end up with a gift card they can't use, and
| while there's a real sense in which the card _is_ worth its face
| value, there 's also a sense in which its restricted use makes it
| worth less than face value. Plus, if you want to spend PSx in a
| shop then you don't normally need to buy a colleague's gift card.
| bombcar wrote:
| A gift card is _always_ worth less than cash, how much depends
| on various factors.
|
| At least 5% (rewards and inconvenience) but closer to 10-15% in
| my experience.
|
| For a 20% discount on stores I use regularly I'll get the gift
| card (usually buy $50 get $10 free).
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I always felt that gift cards are the underbelly of the economy.
| I don't think that's an accident, these things are great ways to
| move money and pay casual labor without the red flags that cash
| throws up these days.
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| One time I got a car detailed, and when I was paying at the
| end, I noticed that the employee was writing out a receipt and
| marking that I had paid with a gift card. I don't remember if I
| was paying with cash or a credit card, but either way I figure
| some sort of tax evasion and/or money laundering scheme was
| happening.
| andy99 wrote:
| What red flags does cash throw up that are circumvented by gift
| cards?
| defrost wrote:
| Simon Dean did a 14 minute break down:
|
| _Is This Australia's Most Easily Hacked Gift Card?_
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBarXDL23hs
|
| of how thieves were abusing gift cards by imaging them in stores,
| waiting until purchased and "holding" value, then extracting that
| value with a little bit of cracking bad security
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I have started new jobs twice once in 2023 and once last year and
| before my first day on the job I got a text from the CEO of the
| company asking me to buy gift cards for them and they couldn't do
| it themselves because they were in a meeting.
|
| They said the CEO by name to my number. Of course it was a scam
| that had nothing to do with my CEO. I wonder how they got my
| number?
| andy99 wrote:
| I've had these, they would have got the CEO from LinkedIn and
| my number is googleable from having resumes online. Someone is
| doing this reconnaissance on different companies.
| bsder wrote:
| If I were the AARP, I'd go further.
|
| "Don't buy gift cards. Full stop."
|
| The general scamminess around gift cards is far too high from all
| angles.
|
| Anyone asking you to pay them in gift cards is a problem. The
| gift card processors have all manner of ways to preserve the
| float by flagging "fraud" in order to suspend your gift card
| until you waste time and give them personal information. The
| company behind your gift card can go bankrupt (see: Bed, Bath and
| Beyond and Fry's). And, finally, as we found from Apple, even
| redeeming a card can cause you problems.
|
| Give cash. In spite of some hoity-toity nitwits who consider cash
| to be gauche for gifts, at no point in my life have I ever be
| disappointed to be given cash.
| andy99 wrote:
| What is the core argument why a gift card would ever be used
| instead of cash?
|
| I can see if someone didn't have any money and had a card and
| wanted to try and sell or exchange it, otherwise? Cash might have
| some limitations but none that are worse than a gift card.
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