Gift Card Scams Persist

The NJCCIC continues to receive incident reports from citizens throughout the state who are impacted by gift card scams. The tactics used in these attempts vary, and include techniques such as purporting to be requests from a boss, claims that the funds will be used for charity, and impersonation of a banking institution. These scams are typically delivered via email and ask the recipient to purchase gift cards and send the codes on the back of the cards to the threat actor. Once the codes are sent, the threat actor can use the funds and the victim will not be able to recover the money used for purchase.

The NJCCIC highly advises users to treat every request for the purchase of gift cards with extreme scrutiny and verify any suspected legitimate requests by contacting the sender via a separate means of communication.