Business
B.C. man shocked after $700 drained from his Walmart gift cards
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Kevin Wilson was thrilled when, as part of a Black Friday promotional deal, he got two Walmart gift cards totalling $700.
But when he went to a Walmart near his home in Surrey, B.C., this month to use his cards, Wilson was dismayed to discover they’d been drained — leaving him with a balance of just 27 cents.
According to transaction records, one card’s cash was spent at a Walmart in Richmond, B.C., and the other, at a Walmart in Mississauga, Ont. — far across the country.
“I was in shock. The cards hadn’t left my possession,” said Wilson. He added that the cards showed no signs of being tampered with.
“It was just like utter disbelief. How is this possible?”
Toronto-based cybersecurity analyst Ritesh Kotak says gift cards are attractive to fraudsters because they’re not registered in anyone’s name, and they’re easily accessible in stores.
“Unfortunately, people are getting scammed,” he said. “These fraudsters are becoming even more sneaky and sophisticated.”
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said that between January. to September, it had received more than 1,000 complaints from victims of gift and prepaid card fraud, totalling upward of $3 million in losses.
Kotak said those numbers will likely rise over the holidays, because the cards are a popular gift item.
“People are going to be victimized, but they’re not going to find out until after the holiday season when they try to use those gift cards.”
‘The light bulb went off’
After he got scammed, Wilson took it upon himself to investigate.
He said when he received his gift cards, he was so pleased that he briefly posted a photo of them on Facebook. The bar codes were visible in the photo, but Wilson didn’t think that was a problem, because the security code on each card was hidden.
But after doing some sleuthing, Wilson realized that his photo may have enabled fraudsters to access his cards. That’s because a shopper can make purchases at self-checkout with a Walmart gift card simply by scanning its bar code — or a photo of the bar code.
“The light bulb went off,” said Wilson. “There was a Eureka moment and I’m like, ‘No way, it couldn’t be that easy.'”
As an experiment, CBC News loaded $5 on a Walmart gift card and attempted to purchase a $3 bag of walnuts at self-checkout by scanning a photo of the card’s bar code. The transaction went through, and the receipt showed the card’s remaining balance.
Walmart’s gift cards are worthless until customers load them with cash. Once loaded, the company requires shoppers to input a card’s hidden security code when using it to make purchases online, but not at self-checkout.
Wilson says a fraudster could easily take photos of a bunch of the cards’ bar codes at Walmart, and then try to buy goods with them at self-checkout at a later date — in the hopes the cards have since been loaded with cash.
“It’s sort of, like, egregious,” he said. “All the cards in Walmart are on bulk display. The bar codes are in plain sight.”
Scammers are finding new ways to deplete money from gift cards ahead of the holidays. Victims of these scams share their stories as cautionary tales. while experts offer tips for how to protect yourself from fraud.
Walmart Canada spokesperson Stephanie Fusco told CBC News that the retailer is investigating Wilson’s case and will reimburse him the missing $700 if it determines he’s a victim of fraud.
Fusco said Walmart has implemented measures to help protect customers from gift card scams, including signs in stores warning them not to share the information on their cards.
Another gift card scam
Nichelle Laus of Mississauga, Ont., almost fell for a different gift card scam. The former Ontario police officer posted her story on social media as a warning to others.
“It drives me crazy to have people victimized this way, especially during the holiday,” said Laus.
Her saga began in October when she tried to buy a $50 Winners gift card at Shoppers Drug Mart. She said the cashier felt the back of the card and informed Laus a fraudster had placed a sticker of another gift card’s bar code overtop of the Winners card’s bar code.
Laus said the cashier then scanned the new bar code, which showed it belonged to an Esso gift card.
She said the cashier explained that if Laus had loaded $50 onto the Winners card, it would have wound up instead on a fraudster’s Esso card.
“The cashier was telling me it’s a big problem,” said Laus. “Had she not noticed — and I wouldn’t have noticed, I would have literally paid 50 bucks, gone away with my card, and it would literally be of no value.”
Earlier this month, Laus encountered the same scam when selecting a $100 Playstation gift card at another Shoppers. This time, it turned out the bar code placed over the original one belonged to a card for the LCBO, Ontario’s liquor stores.
“Had the transaction gone through, I would have loaded $100 on [the LCBO card],” she said.
Loblaw, which owns Shoppers, told CBC News gift card scams are widespread and that its employees are trained to recognize the fraud, including bar code tampering.
Cybersecurity analyst Kotak said that for a few hundred dollars, scammers can easily acquire the necessary software, printer and labels to replicate bar codes.
“If you’re putting these labels on hundreds of gift cards across the country, you’ll be able to recoup your investment very quickly,” he said.
To protect people from gift card fraud, both Kotak and Laus recommend retailers keep the cards behind the counter, so fraudsters can’t tamper with them.
Tesla has promised to start selling cheaper models next year, days after a Reuters report revealed that the company had shelved its plans for an all-new Tesla that would cost only $25,000.
The news that Tesla was scrapping the Model 2 came amid a drop in sales and profits, and a decision to slash a tenth of the company’s global workforce. Reuters also noted increased competition from Chinese EV makers.
Tesla’s deliveries slumped in the first quarter for the first annual drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, missing analyst forecasts by a mile in a sign that even price cuts haven’t been able to stave off an increasingly heated competition on the EV market.
Profits dropped by 50%, disappointing investors and leading to a slump in the company’s share prices, which made any good news urgently needed. Tesla delivered: it said it would bring forward the date for the release of new, lower-cost models. These would be produced on its existing platform and rolled out in the second half of 2025, per the BBC.
Reuters cited the company as warning that this change of plans could “result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected,” however. This suggests the price tag of the new models is unlikely to be as small as the $25,000 promised for the Model 2.
The decision is based on a substantially reduced risk appetite in Tesla’s management, likely affected by the recent financial results and the intensifying competition with Chinese EV makers. Shelving the Model 2 and opting instead for cars to be produced on existing manufacturing lines is the safer move in these “uncertain times”, per the company.
Tesla is also cutting prices, as many other EV makers are doing amid a palpable decline in sales in key markets such as Europe, where the phaseout of subsidies has hit demand for EVs seriously. The cut is of about $2,000 on all models that Tesla currently sells.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Divisions within the Bank of Canada over the timing of a much-anticipated cut to its key overnight interest rate stem from concerns of some members of the central bank’s governing council that progress on taming inflation could stall in the face of stronger domestic demand — or even pick up again in the event of “new surprises.”
“Some members emphasized that, with the economy performing well, the risk had diminished that restrictive monetary policy would slow the economy more than necessary to return inflation to target,” according to a summary of deliberations for the April 10 rate decision that were published Wednesday. “They felt more reassurance was needed to reduce the risk that the downward progress on core inflation would stall, and to avoid jeopardizing the progress made thus far.”
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Others argued that there were additional risks from keeping monetary policy too tight in light of progress already made to tame inflation, which had come down “significantly” across most goods and services.
Some pointed out that the distribution of inflation rates across components of the consumer price index had approached normal, despite outsized price increases and decreases in certain components.
“Coupled with indicators that the economy was in excess supply and with a base case projection showing the output gap starting to close only next year, they felt there was a risk of keeping monetary policy more restrictive than needed.”
In the end, though, the central bankers agreed to hold the rate at five per cent because inflation remained too high and there were still upside risks to the outlook, albeit “less acute” than in the past couple of years.
Despite the “diversity of views” about when conditions will warrant cutting the interest rate, central bank officials agreed that monetary policy easing would probably be gradual, given risks to the outlook and the slow path for returning inflation to target, according to the summary of deliberations.
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They considered a number of potential risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation, including housing and immigration, according to summary of deliberations.
The central bankers discussed the risk that housing market activity could accelerate and further boost shelter prices and acknowledged that easing monetary policy could increase the likelihood of this risk materializing. They concluded that their focus on measures such as CPI-trim, which strips out extreme movements in price changes, allowed them to effectively look through mortgage interest costs while capturing other shelter prices such as rent that are more reflective of supply and demand in housing.
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They also agreed to keep a close eye on immigration in the coming quarters due to uncertainty around recent announcements by the federal government.
“The projection incorporated continued strong population growth in the first half of 2024 followed by much softer growth, in line with the federal government’s target for reducing the share of non-permanent residents,” the summary said. “But details of how these plans will be implemented had not been announced. Governing council recognized that there was some uncertainty about future population growth and agreed it would be important to update the population forecast each quarter.”
• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com
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Shares in US tech giant Meta have sunk in US after-hours trading despite better-than-expected earnings.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said expenses would be higher this year as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence (AI).
Its shares fell more than 15% after it said it expected to spend billions of dollars more than it had previously predicted in 2024.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.
It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.
The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.
Its shares fell despite it beating expectations on its earnings.
First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said its spending plans were “aggressive”.
She said Meta’s “substantial investment” in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers are willing to spend more money “in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife”.
More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, “which hugely increases uncertainty” and can spook advertisers.
She added that Meta’s “fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US”.
Meta’s rival has said it will fight an “unconstitutional” law that could result in TikTok being sold or banned in the US.
President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell off the app or it will be blocked in the US.
Ms Lund-Yates said that “looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory”.
Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland’s data authorities for mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the US.
And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has “more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment”.
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