I told you a couple of days ago about a phishing scam email I received. The crooks used an email address belonging to a deceased contact and asked if I had an Amazon account and inquired if I could do a favor.
Just to have a little fun, I replied.
As expected, the scammers got back to me and claimed they are having issues with their Amazon account. The crook said it would take a couple of days to get it resolved, so would I kindly purchase some Google Play gift cards at my local Walmart or CVS for a niece’s upcoming birthday. Of course, we know that any time anyone asks you to go buy gift cards, it’s a complete scam.
I replied that I’d be glad to do it and just needed to know where to send the gift card. I even offered to buy a birthday card for the “niece.”
It didn’t take 10 minutes for the scammer to get back to me with instructions to scratch the back off the gift card and send them a picture of the PIN number. They also pressured me to make sure I got that done right away.
Of course, when I do that, they’ll immediately redeem the cards and never pay me back. With gift cards, there’s no way to get a refund. The time pressure is that they don’t want me to think it over or actually contact the person whose email address they’re using.
I replied with a screenshot of my actual contact’s obituary and nice photo of someone shooting the bird with both hands.
The scammer replied back and told me I was going to die today! Being a professional, I responded, “Bring it on, bit#!”
Do not fall for these gift card scams. Never scratch the back of a gift card and give it to someone. Never purchase gift cards to pay for services or government fines. It is always a scam.
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