Two women from Flushing, New York, have been charged with swiping an astonishing haul of gift cards from a Braintree pharmacy, in what authorities are calling a slice of a national scam racket. YanYan Liu and Na Dong stand accused of filching 4,617 gift cards from brands like Apple, Nike, Sephora, and Visa at a CVS on Grove Street, a caper potentially linked to a sophisticated thievery operation that engages in quickly draining the cards of their value before the legitimate purchasers can even blink. In what may appear to be a daring daylight heist, the women were busted on December 11 after officers were tipped off about their suspicious activity.
According to NBC Boston, the mechanism of this scam is to copy the information from gift cards, repackage them neatly, and then inconspicuously return them to the storefront display. The victimized patrons would typically load their funds onto these cards at the checkout, completely unaware that scammers are poised to rapidly spend the money, often online, the moment the cards are activated. This dark underside of the gift card industry continues to span across the United States, with police stressing the importance of examining gift cards for any sign of tampering prior to purchase.
The discovery of the pilfered cards was almost cinematic in its simplicity, detailed by police as they spotted the suspect's vehicle, filled with four bags brimming with the preloaded plastic. Deputy Chief Want of the Braintree Police described the cards as "in plain sight" which "immediately caught their attention," as stated by Boston 25 News. The brazen act signals a disturbing trend during a season when gift-giving is commonplace, adding a bitter note to holiday festivities.
Liu and Dong, each charged with shoplifting and receiving stolen property, entered pleas of not guilty in court Tuesday. The intricacies of the scam process, as name-checked by Boston.com, involve recording the gift cards’ barcodes and PIN numbers, then carefully replacing them in the stores, hoping for an unsuspecting customer to fall into their trap. Braintree police have alerted the populace to this underhanded technique, which, if not intercepted, leaves patrons with worthless pieces of plastic and a zero balance to show for their money spent.
The two accused are scheduled to appear on December 22 in the Quincy District Court for a pretrial hearing. In the meantime, citizens are encouraged to retain store receipts when purchasing gift cards and to report any fraudulent activity to the card companies, a protective measure that could ward off the grinch-like antics of such scam artists.
