Costco Gift Cards Involved in Fraudulent Scheme, Shoppers Say

Having a Costco membership gives you access to all sorts of tantalizing deals, from the low-priced gas to the ever-affordable $4.99 rotisserie chicken. But shoppers have recently begun noticing that a popular gift card bargain seems to be part of a theft scheme—to the detriment of those purchasing it.

Alongside all of its grocery and household items, Costco sells packs of digital gift cards for various restaurants, gaming companies, and travel services that are often priced lower than their full value. The deals range from four-packs of $25 Xbox gift cards for $89.99 to four-packs of $25 Dominos gift cards for just $79.99.

While these are stellar offers at face value, some Costco shoppers are reporting that they haven't actually gotten the funds they paid for with the discounted gift card packs. Late last week, one Costco shopper revealed on Reddit that they'd purchased the four-pack of $25 Dominos gift cards only to discover that one of the cards was only loaded with $15. The shopper said this "does make me lose some trust, and defeated the whole point of me buying them at a discount."

This shopper isn't the only one who's experienced such an issue with Costco's gift cards.

"I went through a similar problem [with] Dominos gift cards purchased digitally from Costco. Two $25 cards were fine and two were completely closed," a Redditor commented on the post.

"This happened to me. I thought maybe I just forgot I used it, but it was strange that it was exactly $10 that was missing. I just sucked it up and took the loss," another wrote.

Shoppers suggested that the defective cards may have been targeted in a common scam where thieves drain the funds before the consumer can use them. Not everyone who's purchased digital gift cards from Costco has had this issue, of course. In fact, some said they've had nothing but good experiences when taking advantage of the bargain.

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Still, the theft has apparently gotten so common that an alleged Costco call center employee begged shoppers to avoid the digital gift cards in a Reddit post last week. The employee shared some of the gift card "horror stories" they'd heard from Costco members, such as a mother of four who'd bought $1,000 in Disney gift cards that all ended up having $0 balances. Since gift cards are non-refundable at Costco, the employee said the chances of getting a refund on a drained card are slim to nonexistent.

"Please DO NOT take the chance. I'm sick of dealing with the issues, telling members that their cards were redeemed somewhere across the country by a person with a totally different name," they wrote.

Costco did not immediately respond to our queries for comment on the reports.