'Target has my money and the crook has the gift!': How victims are losing hundreds on the cruel 'card draining' scam that leaves gift cards for major retailers utterly WORTHLESS

Suzanne Gdovic wanted to send her friend's daughter a gift card that she could spend freely in Target. 

It was a gift for a baby shower, and she wanted her friend's daughter to be able to splurge $200 on whatever she needed ahead of the newborn's arrival. Instead, she ended up sending her a card with zero balance. 

Suzanne, 64, from Arvada, Colorado, is one of many who have been victims of a 'card draining' scam - which leads to people being given totally worthless gift cards. 

Sneaky crooks are temporarily stealing batches of gift cards from stores - sometimes hundreds at a time - so they can make a note of the card number, as well as the PIN or activation code. 

At this point the cards are worthless as customers are yet to load any money onto them. But criminals then return them to store shelves - knowing shoppers will eventually load them up with funds up to $500 - and steal the money before the recipient is able to spend it. 

Police are warning about an uptick in this scam during the holiday season as last-minute shoppers look for gifts for family and friends. 

Fraudsters know that the recipients of gift cards are unlikely to try to spend them until Christmas Day. By that time, the gangs will have spent the money loaded to them, leading to confused recipients getting gift cards with a $0 balance.

But this crime does not only affect shoppers at this time of year. 

A recent Better Business Bureau study found reports of gift card scams have increased by 50 percent this year alone. 

Suzanne bought the $200 Target gift card - which she did not realize had been tampered with - from her local store back in September.  

It was then a couple of weeks later when she received a text from her friend's daughter, who she had gifted it to, saying that it had a $0 balance. A message had also popped up on the cashier's screen saying that the gift card was connected to someone else's account. 

'It was embarrassing,' Suzanne told DailyMail.com. 'And I felt bad for her. You're ready to spend $200 and then all of a sudden it's not there. And then of course she had to pay for it.'

Suzanne immediately went to Target to find out what was going on. 

The manager of her local store told her that they were aware of a scam where criminals come in and scrape off the protective metallic strip and access the activation number on the card - before expertly putting the strip back on. 

Not only was Suzanne angry about losing the money, but she did not want the same thing to happen to anyone else. 

'I asked for all the cards to be removed from the shelves, as people were buying them as I spoke to the manager,' said Suzanne. 'Target has my money, and the crook has the gift!'  

She got in touch with Target's corporate office, and finally received her money back in November - two months after originally buying the gift card. 

'In the letter that came there was no recognition or acknowledgement that they were replacing this because of the scam,' said Suzanne. 'The retailers have to start helping us out. I feel bad for people that don't get their money back.'

DailyMail.com got in touch with Target but did not immediately receive a response.

But Target is not the only retailer which is being targeted by criminals - who are using a variety of tactics to dupe shoppers.

In some cases, fraudsters are even subtly opening the sealed envelopes cards are stored in and cutting off and keeping the part of the card with the activation code.

They are then putting the cut card back in the envelope - with the bar code still visible for a teller to scan and add funds - which they can then can steal.

Earlier this week, DailyMail.com reported how authorities across the country have been warning about this scam - which is also affecting Apple, Amazon and Visa Vanilla gift cards among others. 

Victims from across the country got in touch - explaining how they had lost as much as $650 - and mistakenly handed over totally worthless gift cards to loved ones. 

Dina Swartz, from Texas, said how she was left 'embarrassed' after she sent a friend's daughter a gift card which had been wiped of its $100 value. 

'I bought a gift card for my friend’s daughter who had a newborn baby,' she said. 

'I bought the gift card in San Antonio, Texas, and mailed immediately to my girlfriend's daughter in Austin Texas. When she tried to use it, it had a zero balance.'

Dina filed a complaint with Target - and eventually the company reissued the card and sent it directly to her friend's daughter. 

'I felt embarrassed that my friend's daughter - who is a young mother with a newborn - had to go through this process,' she said. 

Greg Clark told DailyMail.com how he had bought two $500 Visa Vanilla cards in a Walgreens store in Manhattan, New York City. 

When he went to spend them, he saw that $650 had been drained from the cards combined, and some of it had been spent on online Amazon purchases. 

He said he had kept the packaging, and noticed that there were glue dots on the bottom of the sealed envelope where one of the cards had been - indicating that it had been tampered with. 

Another victim, Sonja Neilson, said she had also been scammed out of $100 on a Visa Vanilla card - and would never buy one in-store again. 

Cops are warning shoppers to check for any signs that a card has been meddled with - such as scratches or scuff marks or parts of the card missing - before purchasing. 

This is because - to get the numbers -  the crooks typically will have scratched off the silver security foil. They then replace this with a near identical sticker or more foil, which is sold online on sites like Alibaba.

Damage to the card or foil is a tell-tale sign that fraudsters have obtained the card's details - putting any funds added to the card at risk of being stolen.

In 2023, Americans are expected to spend $29.3 billion on gift cards, according to the National Retail Federation. 

Police in Pinole, California, warned of something else to look out for - after officers spotted a variation on the scam. They detailed the alternative tactic being used by scammers in an Instagram video. 

They said crooks were stealing gift cards, removing them from sealed envelopes and then cutting off the activation code, which is hidden beneath the sealed envelope in the store.

'What we're advising to do, is if you are buying a gift card, feel for the entire card, which should be the same size as a credit card,' Pinole Police Department's Sergeant Duggan said in the video.   

'Or with the permission of the store, when you go up to purchase these, remove them from the sealed envelope and make sure that the whole card is there.'

Earlier this month, a man was arrested and accused of tampering with gift cards in a Target store in Sacramento, according to the County Sheriff's Office in California.

Under a Facebook post by the Sheriff's Office warning of the scam, one person wrote:  'Last Christmas, we received a Target gift card with zero balance and but was a sensitive subject to bring it up with the senders. That probably explains why the gift card was zero in balance.'

Police said Ningning Sun was seen stealing gift cards and replacing them on the rack with another set of seemingly identical ones. It is thought he was putting a batch of cards that he and his gang had obtained details for back on shelves. 

Detectives then discovered over 5,000 gift cards from Target and Apple in his possession. 

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office said their investigation found Sun was part of a gift card scam spanning California and several regions across the country. 

'Sun was part of a scam that tampered with gift cards, scanned the bar code, and stole money from the gift card as money was loaded on them,' a statement read. 

'Victims are completely unaware it is happening, and the money is often siphoned to an off-shore account within seconds. These operations are very sophisticated and modifications to the gift cards are often virtually undetectable, even to the trained eye,' it continued.