Why you should be careful using a Sephora gift card

A Sephora customer has warned others to be careful when using or buying someone a gift card, after $150 was swindled from her - without her realizing until she went to spend it.

The TikTok user, who goes by Court, shared her experience of having an entire gift card swiped from her account after she was given the card by her boss - and before she had a chance to spend it.

'Do not buy a Sephora gift card ever,' Court said in a video that's been viewed over 3.2 million times.

Court explained she went to her local Sephora to spend it, attempting to buy the 'biggest' bottle of regular Glossier perfume the store had, as she had the gift card, but when she got to the counter it had no money on it.

 'I was like "hmm, I haven't used that before,"' she recounted. 'Keep in mind, I took the gift card out of the gift receipt that it was wrapped around, I have never used this gift card.'

She said the sales assistant tried the card multiple times, but it didn't work, but she held onto the card to ring customer service after she left the store and explained the situation.

'[I told her] I have never used this gift card - at least I do not think I have - so can you just give me the transaction history and maybe the location that it was used at,' she said of her request to the customer service employee, adding she has a Sephora account and has no transaction history in her account.

The woman looked up the number on the card, finding there was $150 on it and it had all been spent in two separate transactions on one day.

'That was not me,' Court said incredulously. 'Also, it just said online - I would have hooked that up to my Sephora app so I could get points and have a proof of purchase, a tracking number.'

'Ma'am that simply was not me,' she reiterated. 'I know you probably don't believe me but that wasn't me - I've never used this card.'

Court was then told there's nothing customer service could do, and immediately started looking online to see if anyone had experienced the same thing. To her surprise, she found many customers had also allegedly been swindled out of cash.

She noted it happens so frequently that there is a forum on Sephora's website where people are talking about it happening to them.

'Basically, scammers just go on the Sephora website, put stuff in their cart and have computers that just run numbers all day long until they find an existing gift card number and then they just wipe the whole card and use it on whatever they were going to buy.

'And that's what somebody did, to me,' she said, annoyed. 'Do not ever buy a Sephora gift card.'

Many users shared their own troubles with the gift card, some even saying the card had been swiped before it arrived in the post.

'It’s not only Sephora gift cards. It’s industry wide. I work in a gift card department and I can honestly say I will only ever give cash lol,' shared one user. 

'Same thing happened to me!! My dad gave me $150 Sephora gift card for my bday. I went to use it a week later and it was EMPTY. I called and they said it was used online. I said the same thing you said,' shared someone else.

'This just happened to me a couple months ago on a $200 Sephora gift card for my birthday, it's nonsense AND THEY WONT REFUND U,' one angrily wrote.

On the r/Sephora Reddit thread, people also complained about the issue, although many pointed out the scam wasn't exclusive to Sephora.

'This has been happening with a lot of gift cards. It was a big topic of discussion on the Costco subreddit recently and I know Target gift cards have had issues too,' one Reddit user commented.

The DailyMail.com has contacted Sephora for comment. 

In January, customer Ira Schuman sued Visa over losses of $4,000. He bought eight Vanilla cards, each with a value of $500, for his employees between 2022 and 2023 - only to learn later that the cards had been emptied.

Other customers in New York complained to the payments giant about money disappearing from its Vanilla gift cards.

Visa Vanilla cards, sold at CVS, Target, Walgreens, are pre-loaded with cash, and then can be used at retailers much like a debit card.

According to the complaint, the cards are sold in thin cardboard sleeves which thieves can open and, after recording the account information, reseal without being detected.

Fraudsters can then track when money is loaded onto the card and make purchases using the stolen account information.