Chalk this one up to I should have known better but it still happened to me. It’s funny cuz I’ll see people post about tampered VGC and I’ll always say “You should open it up in the store before leaving,” and it seems I didn’t take my own advice. So what happened?
First off, I haven’t been to Walmart in YEARS but since I still had some birds handy, I stopped by last month to do some MS. I found the GC rack and tried to buy some VGC, but the register didn’t ring them up (I think it was because they weren’t Vanilla.) So the store pulled all the VGC. I remember going by there a week later and still no VGC.
Fast forward to earlier this week, I go back there and I see 4 single Vanilla VGC with 4 different designs (red flag.) Usually if the store restocks, you’d see a peg of 10 all with the same design. So I grabbed one (luckily I didn’t grab 2) and bought it. Once I got home and I tore the packaging, I noticed that there was a very hard glue at the bottom of the VGC (I thought it was maybe due to it being a Walmart version.) Secondly, I also noticed the CVV was scratched off too. At that point, I knew the card had been tampered with.
I then called Incomm, waited on hold for 30 minutes to file a case. They asked me for pics of the card, receipt, my DL, and the packaging if I had it. They said it could take up to 30 days to resolve.
Lesson learned here – if you don’t frequent a store often, I’d rip open the VGC package before purchasing it to make sure it doesn’t have the glue or the CVV hasn’t been scratched off.
I’m in the same geo as you Vinh. The VGC situation is out of control. I do need to open them all in store now, because probably more than 50% of the locations I used to visit have these tampered cards. It’s crazy because one day I will visit and the store will be chock full of them. The next day they are gone except for a select few that have the tell tale sign that you describe above. I even tell the store managers that the cards are tampered, but the tampered cards are still there day after day. Whoever is doing this must be clearing big bucks.
@ABC Most recently they not only scratch off the 3 digit CVV but they also scratch of the unique card ID that you need to report it tampered with. So if you have neither the CVV nor the card ID, they will tell you they can’t authenticate you, leaving them free to spend the funds.
So you can’t check the balance online or spend it yourself before they can drain it.
Don’t need the CVV to spend money on a VGC
many of the tampered ones I bought also have the magnetic stripe altered, so you can’t swipe it either. plus they will scratch off a card number so you don’t know the 16 digit number either.
Why do they scratch off the CVV?
amateurs, they thought they can check balance and when the card has balance, use it. But when you check bal on inactive card the cards gets blocked instantly and can’t even be activated at the store when being bought. In the case they probably didn’t have time to use the card so his funds are safe.