A Schuylkill County woman nearly got duped out of $700 in a social media gift card scam.
According to State Police-Frackville, the 67-year-old woman from Oneida told authorities that she fell for a scam post on BlueSky. The poster said he was giving away $50,000 in his lottery winnings.
However, in order to get that money, someone who bought into the scam would have to send them Apple gift cards to pay for legal and transfer fees. The woman apparently went out and purchased the $700 in Apple gift cards and sent their serial numbers to the scammer on BlueSky.
But the woman says she then realized this was a scam and was able to deactivate the gift cards before they could be used by the scammer. She’s now waiting on a refund for her purchases from Apple police say.
The gift card scam is one of the most used by fraudulent actors online. Marks are convinced to purchase gift cards and send serial numbers to the scammer. In nearly all instances of this scam, the person who purchased the gift cards gets nothing in return – certainly nothing that was promised to them – and they’re out all the money they spent. Police are often unable to track down the bad actors.
State Police say they’re still investigating this incident.
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