If you are offered a “free” gift card or gas card by phone, text or mail, check your scam radar. You should notice a large blip zeroing in on your wallet, according to the Minnesota attorney general’s office.
Sometimes the con artist claims the gift card is offered on behalf of a major company. Other times the card is explained as compensation for filling out a survey.
Either way the scammer asks for your credit card number in order to charge a minimal handling fee of a couple of dollars.
People taken in by this tactic report finding “unwanted charges on their card for subscriptions, warranties and all sorts of other products they do not want,” the office said. “The one thing the consumers do not get are the gift cards that were promised.”