Someone walks into a GameStop and asks where the gift cards are. They proceed to buy a bunch of them. Not just $40, or $80, but hundreds of dollars worth of Steam cards, Razer Gold, or some other gaming currency. They don’t look like someone who’s knee deep in the seedy underworld of Counter-Strike skins. The person behind the cash register gets suspicious but they aren’t supposed to pry. They know the customer is probably getting scammed but they don’t want to insult them. The whole thing is incredibly awkward and sad and it happens more often than you think.
“We had one very sick elderly lady that could barely walk and she came in at least once a week to buy $40 to $60 dollars in Razer Gold cards,” one current store manager, Mike, told Kotaku (we are only using his first name because he was not authorized to speak to the press). “She told me about her ‘husband’ who was overseas and how she really needed him back home. This went on for months and eventually she confided in me that she had never met him in person.”
Read more
The 15 Best Games For Sony’s PlayStation 5
The 22 Best Games For The Nintendo Switch
The woman kept buying the gift cards though, sometimes coming in multiple times a week and spending hundreds of dollars a month. Mike said this went on for years. She wasn’t the only one though, and things got so bad at one point the store started hiding some gift cards, like the Razer Golds, to avoid the headache. “Steam we can’t really hide because we sell a ton of those legit,” Mike said. “Razer Gold was only ever bought by scam victims, sadly.”
Gift card scams of this nature usually revolve around a stranger reaching out online or over the phone and making up a story for why they need you to send them money in the form of gift cards they can easily convert online into straight cash. Sometimes they might attempt to catfish someone and guilt them into giving them the funds. More often the scammers pose as a debt collector or distant relative who needs the money to get out of a jam.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, gift card scams rose by 60 percent from 2016 to 2020. They’re so common now that the federal government has an in-depth guide to help people avoid them. Steam cards seem to be a particularly popular form of payment too, in part because they’re so easy to resell online. A woman in New Zealand reportedly lost over $30,000 to Steam gift card scams back in 2021. It got so bad Valve itself put out an FAQ that same year warning people about the different types of fraudulent schemes.
Several current and former GameStop workers Kotaku spoke with shared similar stories of customers, often elderly ones, coming in looking, sometimes anxious, with different excuses for why they needed the gift cards. One current GameStop employee remembered a woman who came in asking for $400 in Steam cards. When pressed, she said her friend emailed saying they were on vacation and had run out of money. The employee told her she couldn’t buy more than $200 in a single transaction.
Read More: GameStop Employee Explains What Made Her Close A Store And Never Come Back
“I had another guy a few months ago who started coming in every day buying $200 of Steam [cards] because he had a friend who was converting it to Bitcoin and honestly he tried to explain it to me but this was clearly a pyramid scheme or some kind of money laundering but the guy didn’t want to listen so I sold him the cards,” the employee told Kotaku.
The employees said that while the issue is well known, GameStop never had an official policy or protocol for addressing it. A few years ago it implemented a cap of $200 in gift card purchases per customer per day, but gave no specific instructions or training for how to talk to customers who might be getting conned. Mike contrasted this with Best Buy, where he said the gift card section included printed-out warnings about possible scams.
Where GameStop apparently has had a zero-tolerance policy for gift card hijinks is when its own money is on the hook. While customers getting scammed into buying Steam cards has become more frequent in recent years, so have employees getting scammed into giving them away. “A common scam is someone pretending to call from corporate or tech support,” one current employee said. “They’ll ask an associate to run a mock transaction on some high amount of gift cards to see if it’s working.”
Sometimes the scammer will even rattle off names of the local staff, all the way up to the district manager, to try and win their confidence. Or they’ll make threats to scare new hires who don’t want to lose their jobs. “The scammer will then have them read the card back to them and bam,” the employee told Kotaku. “That’s hundreds gone. Some scam calls have taken $4,000 or $5,000 off of a store.”
According to several staff, these scams aimed at GameStop employees have gotten worse over the last year as training and resources have repeatedly been cut. “It’s a by-product of the insane turnover we have,” Mike, the store manager, said. GameStop’s corporate office mandated that notices be put up in back rooms warning employees about the scripts scammers use, and had big red stop sign stickers put on phones to try and get them to remember. For employees who don’t have enough experience, however, it’s not always enough. “16 hours [of training] and then you give them keys to the store.”
“After the call he began crying and thanked me profusely.” — GameStop employee
But it’s the customers getting tricked that can be the most upsetting for GameStop workers, especially when they don’t want to listen. Mike said he remembered one older Southern woman who came in several years ago and was a big country music fan. When she came in trying to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of Steam cards, Mike asked why. She apparently ran a Kenny Chesney club on Facebook and told him Chesney himself had joined and befriended her and needed the money for his tours. “I couldn’t talk her out of it.”
Some people do listen, however, which can be both a relief and a good feeling. “I do have a single good story,” Mike said. “Once I had an elderly man come in saying he needed $500 in Steam money. I knew instantly what was happening so I asked him flat out what for. He said his brother in Cali had emailed him and his car broke down and he needed the money for repairs.”
Mike said he explained that the cards were only for PC games and asked if the man had actually spoken to his brother. “He thought for a moment before calling his brother,” he told Kotaku. “After the call he began crying and thanked me profusely. The brother’s email was hacked and he didn’t even think to call because these elderly folks are just not keen on tech and how things work. The idea of scammers and hackers is so foreign to them they just don’t understand.”
More from Kotaku
All The Big Pokémon Games, Ranked From Worst To Best
Sign up for Kotaku’s Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click here to read the full article.
Concerns about the deficit have fueled the Treasury-bond market meltdown of the past few weeks. These charts show why Wall Street is worried.
An individual can protect their assets from Medicaid, including their home, by placing them into a trust. Essentially, the assets become owned by the trust and not by the individual. This mechanism can decrease the individual’s asset count for Medicaid eligibility, presenting a way to potentially conserve wealth and secure necessary medical care. However, like all […] The post Does Putting Your Home in a Trust Protect It From Medicaid? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
Jordan Belfort, known for his best-selling book, "The Wolf of Wall Street," shares some simple investing advice to build a large retirement nest egg.
Chronic inflammation has serious health consequences. Deepak Chopra says these 5 habits can help reduce it
What will the 2024 housing market bring? We asked the experts.
Half a million dollars might sound like a lot of money, but if you’re approaching retirement, is it enough? If you have $500,000 in a pre-tax IRA and expect $2,000 per month from Social Security, you may have enough money to retire at age 67. A half million dollars is a relatively modest nest egg, […] The post I Have $500k in an IRA and Will Receive $2,000 Monthly From Social Security. Can I Retire at 67? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
Retiring at age 62 and filing for Social Security will reduce a person’s lifetime benefits by up to 30% compared to waiting until their full retirement age. However, a person with $2.5 million in a Roth IRA may feel more comfortable retiring at age 62, despite the impact that early retirement will have on their […] The post I Have $2.5 Million in a Roth IRA and Will Receive $2,500 Monthly From Social Security. Can I Retire at 62? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
The rise of electric cars will cause an increase in traffic jams across the country, new analysis conducted by the Government shows.
Over the past 50 years, four tidal waves of debt have crashed down on the global economy – three of which ended in crisis.
Stock market futures rose late Sunday ahead of this week's Fed rate decision. The S&P 500 fell into a correction last week. Can stocks recover?
My wife and I bought long-term care policies 25 years ago when they were relatively cheap. Now, our premiums have increased for the third time to over $500 per month and will rise again in six years. I figure I’ve already paid about $72,000 in premiums. Now, in our late 70s, I’m trying to decide […] The post Ask an Advisor: Our Long-Term Care Insurance Now Costs $500 Per Month. We’re in Our Mid-70s and Have Paid $72k in Total. Should We Cancel Our Policies? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartA
Another busy week for investors will be highlighted by central bank news and results from America's biggest public company.
Treasury yields have surged, bringing the ultra-safe investments in line with the highest dividend yields among S&P 500 firms.
(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve’s policy statement is setting up to be the No. 2 event on Wednesday, with investor focus instead likely to be on the Treasury Department’s new borrowing plan, due hours ahead of the interest-rate decision.Most Read from BloombergIsrael Latest: Biden, Netanyahu Plan to Talk Within HoursIsrael Deepens a War With Hamas That Has No End in SightHow This Israel-Hamas Conflict Is Like Nothing That’s Happened BeforeUkraine Recap: Russian Su-25 Fighter Jet Said to be Sh
Exxon’s $60 billion deal to buy Pioneer and Chevron’s $53 billion tie up with Hess sends a clear message to investors — the world may be shifting to clean energy but big oil is doubling down on fossil fuel.
The U.S. Treasury is likely to boost the size of auctions for bills, notes, and bonds in the fourth quarter when it announces its financing plans this week to fund a worsening budget deficit, analysts said. Investors are playing close attention to this week's quarterly refunding announcement as a sharp jump in long-term Treasury yields has been partly attributed to concerns about the U.S. fiscal deficit. "The market has associated the rise in Treasury yields with deficit concerns and reflects worries about the sustainability of those deficits," said Guneet Dhingra, managing director and head of U.S. rates strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.
DETROIT (Reuters) -United Auto Workers leaders approved a tentative deal on Sunday with Ford that includes a pay hike of at least 30% for full-time workers and could more than double pay for others, in a victory for the union's fight to roll back 15 years of concessions. Bargaining continued at General Motors without any deal. UAW President Shawn Fain on Saturday ordered a walkout at GM's Spring Hill, Tennessee, engine and assembly plant.
The uptick is contributing to the struggles the Biden administration faces in curbing the surge in illegal border crossings.
The mortgage industry is notoriously feast or famine, but there’s no obvious way out of this bust, and many mortgage companies are growing desperate.
Many regional banks say their troubled loans are on the rise as commercial borrowers show more signs of strain.
source
“We had one very sick elderly lady that could barely walk and she came in at least once a week to buy $40 to $60 dollars in Razer Gold cards,” one current store manager, Mike, told Kotaku (we are only using his first name because he was not authorized to speak to the press). “She told me about her ‘husband’ who was overseas and how she really needed him back home. This went on for months and eventually she confided in me that she had never met him in person.”
Read more
The 15 Best Games For Sony’s PlayStation 5
The 22 Best Games For The Nintendo Switch
The woman kept buying the gift cards though, sometimes coming in multiple times a week and spending hundreds of dollars a month. Mike said this went on for years. She wasn’t the only one though, and things got so bad at one point the store started hiding some gift cards, like the Razer Golds, to avoid the headache. “Steam we can’t really hide because we sell a ton of those legit,” Mike said. “Razer Gold was only ever bought by scam victims, sadly.”
Gift card scams of this nature usually revolve around a stranger reaching out online or over the phone and making up a story for why they need you to send them money in the form of gift cards they can easily convert online into straight cash. Sometimes they might attempt to catfish someone and guilt them into giving them the funds. More often the scammers pose as a debt collector or distant relative who needs the money to get out of a jam.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, gift card scams rose by 60 percent from 2016 to 2020. They’re so common now that the federal government has an in-depth guide to help people avoid them. Steam cards seem to be a particularly popular form of payment too, in part because they’re so easy to resell online. A woman in New Zealand reportedly lost over $30,000 to Steam gift card scams back in 2021. It got so bad Valve itself put out an FAQ that same year warning people about the different types of fraudulent schemes.
Several current and former GameStop workers Kotaku spoke with shared similar stories of customers, often elderly ones, coming in looking, sometimes anxious, with different excuses for why they needed the gift cards. One current GameStop employee remembered a woman who came in asking for $400 in Steam cards. When pressed, she said her friend emailed saying they were on vacation and had run out of money. The employee told her she couldn’t buy more than $200 in a single transaction.
Read More: GameStop Employee Explains What Made Her Close A Store And Never Come Back
“I had another guy a few months ago who started coming in every day buying $200 of Steam [cards] because he had a friend who was converting it to Bitcoin and honestly he tried to explain it to me but this was clearly a pyramid scheme or some kind of money laundering but the guy didn’t want to listen so I sold him the cards,” the employee told Kotaku.
The employees said that while the issue is well known, GameStop never had an official policy or protocol for addressing it. A few years ago it implemented a cap of $200 in gift card purchases per customer per day, but gave no specific instructions or training for how to talk to customers who might be getting conned. Mike contrasted this with Best Buy, where he said the gift card section included printed-out warnings about possible scams.
Where GameStop apparently has had a zero-tolerance policy for gift card hijinks is when its own money is on the hook. While customers getting scammed into buying Steam cards has become more frequent in recent years, so have employees getting scammed into giving them away. “A common scam is someone pretending to call from corporate or tech support,” one current employee said. “They’ll ask an associate to run a mock transaction on some high amount of gift cards to see if it’s working.”
Sometimes the scammer will even rattle off names of the local staff, all the way up to the district manager, to try and win their confidence. Or they’ll make threats to scare new hires who don’t want to lose their jobs. “The scammer will then have them read the card back to them and bam,” the employee told Kotaku. “That’s hundreds gone. Some scam calls have taken $4,000 or $5,000 off of a store.”
According to several staff, these scams aimed at GameStop employees have gotten worse over the last year as training and resources have repeatedly been cut. “It’s a by-product of the insane turnover we have,” Mike, the store manager, said. GameStop’s corporate office mandated that notices be put up in back rooms warning employees about the scripts scammers use, and had big red stop sign stickers put on phones to try and get them to remember. For employees who don’t have enough experience, however, it’s not always enough. “16 hours [of training] and then you give them keys to the store.”
“After the call he began crying and thanked me profusely.” — GameStop employee
But it’s the customers getting tricked that can be the most upsetting for GameStop workers, especially when they don’t want to listen. Mike said he remembered one older Southern woman who came in several years ago and was a big country music fan. When she came in trying to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of Steam cards, Mike asked why. She apparently ran a Kenny Chesney club on Facebook and told him Chesney himself had joined and befriended her and needed the money for his tours. “I couldn’t talk her out of it.”
Some people do listen, however, which can be both a relief and a good feeling. “I do have a single good story,” Mike said. “Once I had an elderly man come in saying he needed $500 in Steam money. I knew instantly what was happening so I asked him flat out what for. He said his brother in Cali had emailed him and his car broke down and he needed the money for repairs.”
Mike said he explained that the cards were only for PC games and asked if the man had actually spoken to his brother. “He thought for a moment before calling his brother,” he told Kotaku. “After the call he began crying and thanked me profusely. The brother’s email was hacked and he didn’t even think to call because these elderly folks are just not keen on tech and how things work. The idea of scammers and hackers is so foreign to them they just don’t understand.”
More from Kotaku
All The Big Pokémon Games, Ranked From Worst To Best
Sign up for Kotaku’s Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click here to read the full article.
Concerns about the deficit have fueled the Treasury-bond market meltdown of the past few weeks. These charts show why Wall Street is worried.
An individual can protect their assets from Medicaid, including their home, by placing them into a trust. Essentially, the assets become owned by the trust and not by the individual. This mechanism can decrease the individual’s asset count for Medicaid eligibility, presenting a way to potentially conserve wealth and secure necessary medical care. However, like all […] The post Does Putting Your Home in a Trust Protect It From Medicaid? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
Jordan Belfort, known for his best-selling book, "The Wolf of Wall Street," shares some simple investing advice to build a large retirement nest egg.
Chronic inflammation has serious health consequences. Deepak Chopra says these 5 habits can help reduce it
What will the 2024 housing market bring? We asked the experts.
Half a million dollars might sound like a lot of money, but if you’re approaching retirement, is it enough? If you have $500,000 in a pre-tax IRA and expect $2,000 per month from Social Security, you may have enough money to retire at age 67. A half million dollars is a relatively modest nest egg, […] The post I Have $500k in an IRA and Will Receive $2,000 Monthly From Social Security. Can I Retire at 67? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
Retiring at age 62 and filing for Social Security will reduce a person’s lifetime benefits by up to 30% compared to waiting until their full retirement age. However, a person with $2.5 million in a Roth IRA may feel more comfortable retiring at age 62, despite the impact that early retirement will have on their […] The post I Have $2.5 Million in a Roth IRA and Will Receive $2,500 Monthly From Social Security. Can I Retire at 62? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
The rise of electric cars will cause an increase in traffic jams across the country, new analysis conducted by the Government shows.
Over the past 50 years, four tidal waves of debt have crashed down on the global economy – three of which ended in crisis.
Stock market futures rose late Sunday ahead of this week's Fed rate decision. The S&P 500 fell into a correction last week. Can stocks recover?
My wife and I bought long-term care policies 25 years ago when they were relatively cheap. Now, our premiums have increased for the third time to over $500 per month and will rise again in six years. I figure I’ve already paid about $72,000 in premiums. Now, in our late 70s, I’m trying to decide […] The post Ask an Advisor: Our Long-Term Care Insurance Now Costs $500 Per Month. We’re in Our Mid-70s and Have Paid $72k in Total. Should We Cancel Our Policies? appeared first on SmartReads by SmartA
Another busy week for investors will be highlighted by central bank news and results from America's biggest public company.
Treasury yields have surged, bringing the ultra-safe investments in line with the highest dividend yields among S&P 500 firms.
(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve’s policy statement is setting up to be the No. 2 event on Wednesday, with investor focus instead likely to be on the Treasury Department’s new borrowing plan, due hours ahead of the interest-rate decision.Most Read from BloombergIsrael Latest: Biden, Netanyahu Plan to Talk Within HoursIsrael Deepens a War With Hamas That Has No End in SightHow This Israel-Hamas Conflict Is Like Nothing That’s Happened BeforeUkraine Recap: Russian Su-25 Fighter Jet Said to be Sh
Exxon’s $60 billion deal to buy Pioneer and Chevron’s $53 billion tie up with Hess sends a clear message to investors — the world may be shifting to clean energy but big oil is doubling down on fossil fuel.
The U.S. Treasury is likely to boost the size of auctions for bills, notes, and bonds in the fourth quarter when it announces its financing plans this week to fund a worsening budget deficit, analysts said. Investors are playing close attention to this week's quarterly refunding announcement as a sharp jump in long-term Treasury yields has been partly attributed to concerns about the U.S. fiscal deficit. "The market has associated the rise in Treasury yields with deficit concerns and reflects worries about the sustainability of those deficits," said Guneet Dhingra, managing director and head of U.S. rates strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.
DETROIT (Reuters) -United Auto Workers leaders approved a tentative deal on Sunday with Ford that includes a pay hike of at least 30% for full-time workers and could more than double pay for others, in a victory for the union's fight to roll back 15 years of concessions. Bargaining continued at General Motors without any deal. UAW President Shawn Fain on Saturday ordered a walkout at GM's Spring Hill, Tennessee, engine and assembly plant.
The uptick is contributing to the struggles the Biden administration faces in curbing the surge in illegal border crossings.
The mortgage industry is notoriously feast or famine, but there’s no obvious way out of this bust, and many mortgage companies are growing desperate.
Many regional banks say their troubled loans are on the rise as commercial borrowers show more signs of strain.
source