A spokesman for the Kentucky Retail Federation said a bill that passed the General Assembly unanimously and was signed by Governor Beshear last week will address a new type of gift card fraud. Steve McClain is the director of communications and public affairs for the KRF.
“What these criminals will do, they'll get the gift cards, get the information off of them, and then once you went, bought the card, and it was activated, they would drain that money off the card.”
McClain said under the present system, police can’t charge the fraudsters until the gift card is used. He said Senate Bill 130 will make that easier, and stores are also taking measures to make it harder for people to walk out with a card, gather information and return them.
“At the store where I shop, to get gift cards, they were putting in new displays that made it harder to – you couldn't put the card back on the rack.”
The KRF said many of these gift card scams, including a recent case in Louisville, are orchestrated by transnational criminal organizations.
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