FTC Data show gift cards remain scammers’ favorite payment method

Agency to roll out new materials for retailers to help combat gift card scams

A new data analysis by the Federal Trade Commission shows that gift cards continue to be the most common form of payment when consumers report losing money to most scammers.

Since 2018, the data analysis shows consumers have reported spending nearly $245 million on gift cards that they used to pay scammers for a wide variety of scams. Most often, consumers that use gift cards to pay a scammer are drawn in by an imposter scam. These can take on many forms, but the ones most likely to rely on gift cards as a payment method were government imposters, family imposters, business imposters, and tech support scams.

Read the full news release.