Combine the popularity of Amazon with the popularity of gift cards and you have something scammers have turned into a scam that is resulting in many people losing a lot of money. The scam starts with the targeted victim being contacted by an email, phone call or through social media with on offer to sell valuable goods at a dramatically reduced price which must be paid by an Amazon gift card. The reason given for offering the goods at such a steep discount is generally due to some financial emergency. Unfortunately, the entire offer is a scam. Nothing is being sold. The intention of the scammer is merely to trick people into providing Amazon gift card numbers to the scammer who can then use them to purchase goods through Amazon which the scammer will then sell to turn the stolen merchandise into cash.

TIPS

This scam is an easy one to avoid by merely remembering that Amazon gift cards can only be used to make purchases on Amazon. They are never used to make payments to other businesses. If you receive such a solicitation, you should merely ignore it.

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