For my non-Aussie friends, the ATO = Australian Taxation Office.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Is this as big an issue in other countries?
Here in Australia when you buy a gift card through the self checkout, a warning pops up about scams that you have to click ok through. There's also messages that come over the in-store radio warning about not paying with gift cards too.
A few years ago in a town near me here in Canada, an old lady was trying to buy a bunch of gift cards from the local Staples outlet. The staff talked to her and realized she was getting scammed and tried to talk her out of it, but she refused to listen and got angry when they wouldn't sell her the cards. She left and went to a different store in town where the same thing happened. It took the local police to come down and talk to her before she realized she was close to losing a ton of money.
The annoying thing is they also get really insistent that it is a scam even when it's not. My grandma (an old lady) always buys a mountain of giftcards every year for christmas just because it's a big family and that makes for easy christmas gifts. Every year she has to argue with someone that, no she isn't getting scammed and they are actually for christmas gifts. You would think stores would be a little more lax on that around the holidays but aparently not.
Often this is part of the scam. Once the scammers have you convinced that they're official, they tell you to say it's for holidays or a birthday or something like that so you don't get stopped when buying gift cards.
Of course, this makes it really annoying to actually try to buy gift cards for gifts, because now when you defend yourself it sounds like you're getting scammed...