Buying Amazon Gift cards with BTC? Beware!

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on July 16, 2019, 08:07:19 PM

As an addendum to this, if you are buying a gift card at less than cost price, then you are almost certainly buying a gift card which has been stolen, or bought with stolen ("carded") credit card details.

Depends on the discount. 20% or more, unless it's a $5 card or something close, it's very likely it's been fraudulently obtained. The higher the value of the transaction the lower should the discount be. Most discounts via purse.io are ~5% now if you're a new user.

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Thanks for the helpful information you shared. I received many emails announcing winning programs via URL links, luckily I didn't learn access to it. Currently many forms of phishing, especially phishing and virus-linked links, downloading virus-containing software, ... Be careful with it, keep your key code safe and do not access or download applications from spam,...

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: Stedsm on July 19, 2019, 06:40:12 PM

-snip-

I mean, that's certainly possible. A buyer could buy a gift card with monero or sufficiently anonymized bitcoin, load that card to an Amazon account in a fake name, and ship it to an Amazon self-service locker or pick up point, and do all this from an untraceable internet connection. That doesn't, however, remove the risk of the card being declared invalid inbetween purchase and shipping of goods, so you would need an escrow to hold on the the bitcoin until the goods had actually been received. It also doesn't remove the risk of Amazon shutting down the account. It's a fair effort to go to to obtain another account just to have them repeatedly shutdown.

Stedsm

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Quote from: timerland on July 19, 2019, 06:18:31 PM

There's one thing that you didn't mention which was the risk of purchasing a card that was initially bought with a stolen credit card.

That's the risk I think that is most important to realize when you're transacting with any kind of gift card - that you are trusting the seller to be providing you with a legitimately purchased card. Even escrow won't be able to protect you from a fraudulent gift card.

You may be able to spend the GC and redeem it, sure, but you may be in trouble with law enforcement given that the goods are shipped to your address.

--snip--

What IF:
- A buyer's intentions aren't too good and he's gonna buy it with someone else's Amazon account? (You know you can get an Amazon account with anyone's credentials for some bucks in dark markets, and even free sometimes)
- A buyer uses a different location (VPN) to protect himself from being traced
- Last but not the least, a buyer gives a fake address or an address of any of his relatives, friends, ENEMIES, or a postal address where he could fake out his identity and get the product through that gift card?

There's a lot I've got in my mind to ask, but please clarify these first.

timerland

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Quote from: Stedsm on July 16, 2019, 12:02:05 PM

Actually, there's a lot of demand regarding such digital and/or physical gift cards which gives thieves a chance to make their move and lay down a trap for newbies and even experienced guys with a great need for this thing. You should be extremely careful while dealing with these sellers and only look for the most trustworthy person who is actually in business whether you try to find one over this forum or somewhere else. Although, I've seen even most trusted users turning into scammers, let's talk about how they can scam you:

- By either giving you a used gift card number
- Or giving you a gift card worth less than what's promised
- Worst would be when they leave you without giving anything to you and just run away with your BTC,

And as you know, BTC is irreversible so you can't even claim anything back. So, be very much aware of the purchases you make and always look for a very trustworthy guy to purchase such things. I won't advice about any escrow because my experience says that nobody will accept to become an escrow for such deals due to the fact that they can't check the gift card for you and they won't bet their dignity for some bucks where you may come up and say that the escrow cheated you by redeeming the code himself.

There's one thing that you didn't mention which was the risk of purchasing a card that was initially bought with a stolen credit card.

That's the risk I think that is most important to realize when you're transacting with any kind of gift card - that you are trusting the seller to be providing you with a legitimately purchased card. Even escrow won't be able to protect you from a fraudulent gift card.

You may be able to spend the GC and redeem it, sure, but you may be in trouble with law enforcement given that the goods are shipped to your address.

For those who are saying that purse.io solves this issue, this is not true. A lot of the steeply discounted gift card balances on there are most likely fraudulent in one way or another, and despite their $10k guarantee program, do you really want to go through the ordeal of potentially having police knocking on your door?

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Quote from: Stedsm on July 19, 2019, 10:41:57 AM

Quote from: LeGaulois on July 18, 2019, 03:38:08 PM

I wanted to sell Amazon gift cards here in the forum with a 1:1 rate. The gift cards are totally legit, I can even provide a receipt of payment with company numbers, address, etc, so if it turns to be a scam, people could fight back
The only thing is the gift cards are only available in the .fr

One more reason for any seller to sell it cheap is that, we don't really get potential buyers for some specific amazon.xxx gift cards (where xxx could be any domain extension depending on your country and/or type of rewards you get based on the same) and the impossibility for a seller to be able to find a buyer quickly if he's in need, he sells with some discount after negotiations.

Quote from: LeGaulois on July 18, 2019, 03:38:08 PM

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

...

I use Bing Rewards as well, I don't make as much I guess you're in the US, and I'm European. Well, I get a card every 5 weeks about. It doesn't hurt to save some bucks Tongue

I also wish to know about this from anyone who belongs to India, i.e.; can I also obtain amazon.in gift cards through Bing rewards program?

It depends on where do you live. For example, I noticed @philipma1957 can choose the Amazon.com gift card so that's why I supposed he's living there. Me, European, I don't see Amazon gift card but 3 other options or to donate to a charity. If you go to the rewards page you can see the option available in your country. (...if Bing reward was launched in India...)

Stedsm

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Quote from: LeGaulois on July 18, 2019, 03:38:08 PM

I wanted to sell Amazon gift cards here in the forum with a 1:1 rate. The gift cards are totally legit, I can even provide a receipt of payment with company numbers, address, etc, so if it turns to be a scam, people could fight back
The only thing is the gift cards are only available in the .fr

One more reason for any seller to sell it cheap is that, we don't really get potential buyers for some specific amazon.xxx gift cards (where xxx could be any domain extension depending on your country and/or type of rewards you get based on the same) and the impossibility for a seller to be able to find a buyer quickly if he's in need, he sells with some discount after negotiations.

Quote from: LeGaulois on July 18, 2019, 03:38:08 PM

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

...

I use Bing Rewards as well, I don't make as much I guess you're in the US, and I'm European. Well, I get a card every 5 weeks about. It doesn't hurt to save some bucks Tongue

I also wish to know about this from anyone who belongs to India, i.e.; can I also obtain amazon.in gift cards through Bing rewards program?

AdolfinWolf

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Quote from: Harlot on July 18, 2019, 02:37:52 PM

That's why an escrow or a middleman is always handy when it comes to this situation. Having a trusted escrow holding your funds to await the product from the other side assures you that you won't get dupe by them. So for newbies who are trading to other members who aren't that known yet with their trades are highly advice you to spend a little extra when it comes to trading, because you will lose more if you get scammed by them.

No it actually doesn't.
The giftcard code can be perfectly valid at first, only to be canceled by amazon at a later date due to carding/cracking.

So the deal can go go through without any problems, and still result in you getting scammed and ending up with a disabled amazon account.

LeGaulois

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I wanted to sell Amazon gift cards here in the forum with a 1:1 rate. The gift cards are totally legit, I can even provide a receipt of payment with company numbers, address, etc, so if it turns to be a scam, people could fight back
The only thing is the gift cards are only available in the .fr

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

...

I use Bing Rewards as well, I don't make as much I guess you're in the US, and I'm European. Well, I get a card every 5 weeks about. It doesn't hurt to save some bucks Tongue

Harlot

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That's why an escrow or a middleman is always handy when it comes to this situation. Having a trusted escrow holding your funds to await the product from the other side assures you that you won't get dupe by them. So for newbies who are trading to other members who aren't that known yet with their trades are highly advice you to spend a little extra when it comes to trading, because you will lose more if you get scammed by them.

dothebeats

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Knowing that the cryptocurrency is indeed irreversible when a transaction is initiated, this has become a target for scammers to capitalize on, and knowing that there are people looking to try using bitcoins as a form of payment, they end up getting scammed. This doesn't end on Amazon gift cards. There are a lot of digital goods that are being sold using bitcoins all the while being tampered and/or unusable.

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

Half value = red flag.

But there are ways to earn 5 dollar amazon cards for free via the bing search engine.

I suspect someone has 1000 emails and with scrypt coding could earn 1000 x 5 = 5000 in cards a month.

I earn 1 every 22-28 days as does my wife.

you can earn 150+100+20 = 270 points in a day + 30 in quizzes so 300 but you need a cell phone. to get about 9000 points a month

with no cell phone 150+20= 170 + 30 in quizzes do 200 a day or 6000 points a month.

I have to think some people are earning a ton of cards via multiple emails

I earned one today with a bing account .

This is a good technique I should say, and knowing my habit of randomly searching something that I found interesting, this nets me something in return. I've been using the Bing Rewards program for about 2 months now, and at first I wasn't really that used to the UI and the fetched results but I just kind of get the hang of it along the way.

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Quote from: stompix on July 18, 2019, 07:08:43 AM

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on July 18, 2019, 05:35:15 AM

Quote

A former Microsoft employee is being accused by federal prosecutors of stealing gift cards and large sums of digital currency from the company and then reselling the items online to fund real-life purchases, including a $1.6 million lakefront home and $160,000 Tesla vehicle. <…>

See https://www.foxnews.com/tech/microsoft-employee-accused-of-scheme

Impressive but again, if he sold them at a discount, he sold them so because he knew they were illegally obtained and he had to dump them.

Quote from: Stedsm on July 18, 2019, 06:54:31 AM

Even when there is demand, there were sellers available who were selling for cheap (as mostly they were carded ones) but due to it, the market got slump even for the real sellers and sellers like me just sold them cheaper due to being unknown about how we could use it, while others sold it not too cheap but yeah, somewhat cheap.

Yeah, as always there is a simple answer I never thought of it.
Demand and offer, if the market is flooded with large discounted items you have no chance of selling them if you don't apply the same discount, even if you deal with legit items and the others with fake ones.
Reminds me how my parents had to drop 5% of the meat price just because the shops were also selling some cheap meat injected with saltwater at some ridiculous prices.

One thing I'm curious about.
Does Amazon have any limits on how many gift cards or their value that you can use for purchases in a year on in some time frame?

I would image the answer is yes in some cases. No in others.

Pretend I have an amazon prime credit card. Lets say it has a 10k limit. I think it is a visa issued by chase bank for amazon.

I can buy a gift card direct from amazon. Since my cc is 10k I could buy a 6 to 8k set of cards in a day.

Pay the cc via an online account the same day . I would guess I could order 100k in cards each and every month If I keep paying my CC off.
I would also guess they would ask me WTF are you doing. But My credit numbers are very good. So I expect That if I had the money to keep paying that card off they would not limit what I am doing.

So that is a yes.

Lets say I have 17 visa and mastercards. The total amount of credit is 170k about 10k on each card.
I order 9k on every card in 1 day. I can guarantee you they would put a stop on that before I did all 17 cards.

So that is a no.

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Quote from: DdmrDdmr on July 18, 2019, 05:35:15 AM

Quote

A former Microsoft employee is being accused by federal prosecutors of stealing gift cards and large sums of digital currency from the company and then reselling the items online to fund real-life purchases, including a $1.6 million lakefront home and $160,000 Tesla vehicle. <…>

See https://www.foxnews.com/tech/microsoft-employee-accused-of-scheme

Impressive but again, if he sold them at a discount, he sold them so because he knew they were illegally obtained and he had to dump them.

Quote from: Stedsm on July 18, 2019, 06:54:31 AM

Even when there is demand, there were sellers available who were selling for cheap (as mostly they were carded ones) but due to it, the market got slump even for the real sellers and sellers like me just sold them cheaper due to being unknown about how we could use it, while others sold it not too cheap but yeah, somewhat cheap.

Yeah, as always there is a simple answer I never thought of it.
Demand and offer, if the market is flooded with large discounted items you have no chance of selling them if you don't apply the same discount, even if you deal with legit items and the others with fake ones.
Reminds me how my parents had to drop 5% of the meat price just because the shops were also selling some cheap meat injected with saltwater at some ridiculous prices.

One thing I'm curious about.
Does Amazon have any limits on how many gift cards or their value that you can use for purchases in a year on in some time frame?

Stedsm

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Quote from: stompix on July 18, 2019, 02:26:37 AM

Quote from: hugeblack on July 17, 2019, 05:16:00 AM

Quote from: stompix on July 17, 2019, 03:02:38 AM

I never understood why would anybody sell thousands of giftcards at half of their value.

One of the main reasons for this is to buy Bitcoin anonymously. You can buy gift cards using cash and then use those cards to buy BTC without exposing your bank account or personal information to risk.

Sorry but I still don't get it

, probably because I\ve never dealt with them.

But you say that that gifts-card can be used to buy BTC anonymously, this being a main advantage of the users.
So, why would you sell those at such ridiculous discounts when there is demand for them?

I'm confused about the huge discount some seller advertise, not the actual usage.

Even when there is demand, there were sellers available who were selling for cheap (as mostly they were carded ones) but due to it, the market got slump even for the real sellers and sellers like me just sold them cheaper due to being unknown about how we could use it, while others sold it not too cheap but yeah, somewhat cheap.

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on July 18, 2019, 05:35:15 AM

Although not on Amazon, but rather on Microsoft, here’s an example that’s come out fresh from the oven (although commited over a year ago) that lets us see a potential and probable origin of these gift cards on the market: an inside job.

Quote

A former Microsoft employee is being accused by federal prosecutors of stealing gift cards and large sums of digital currency from the company and then reselling the items online to fund real-life purchases, including a $1.6 million lakefront home and $160,000 Tesla vehicle. <…>

See https://www.foxnews.com/tech/microsoft-employee-accused-of-scheme

So, were they sold at huge discounts? I didn't get a summary of how they actually sold them off, but WoW! A lakefront home and a Tesla vehicle? Shit, I used to sell gift cards too that I always used to get from a friend living in USA who used to do some tasks over some apps advertised there (I discussed this already) and he used to give them to me to use and as I previously said, I never got the right opportunity to utilize such cards so I only sold them, but my bad I couldn't even make 1/10th out of what was shown in the article.

DdmrDdmr

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Although not on Amazon, but rather on Microsoft, here’s an example that’s come out fresh from the oven (although commited over a year ago) that lets us see a potential and probable origin of these gift cards on the market: an inside job.

Quote

A former Microsoft employee is being accused by federal prosecutors of stealing gift cards and large sums of digital currency from the company and then reselling the items online to fund real-life purchases, including a $1.6 million lakefront home and $160,000 Tesla vehicle. <…>

See https://www.foxnews.com/tech/microsoft-employee-accused-of-scheme

AdolfinWolf

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Quote from: stompix on July 18, 2019, 02:26:37 AM

Quote from: hugeblack on July 17, 2019, 05:16:00 AM

Quote from: stompix on July 17, 2019, 03:02:38 AM

I never understood why would anybody sell thousands of giftcards at half of their value.

One of the main reasons for this is to buy Bitcoin anonymously. You can buy gift cards using cash and then use those cards to buy BTC without exposing your bank account or personal information to risk.

Sorry but I still don't get it

, probably because I\ve never dealt with them.

But you say that that gifts-card can be used to buy BTC anonymously, this being a main advantage of the users.
So, why would you sell those at such ridiculous discounts when there is demand for them?

I'm confused about the huge discount some seller advertise, not the actual usage.

Because the sellers take enormous risk taking these cards probably? Which is why there's a 30-50% markup rate incase the card is carded or later to be found invalid or in some other way "bad".

Which really doesn't make it a good way to anonymously buy bitcoin. Unless of course you don't care about paying a 50% premium.

But indeed, that doesn't explain why someone would sell the giftcard for 75% of their original value, and i actually rarely see reputable sellers selling these giftcards for less than 90% of it's value.

stompix

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Quote from: hugeblack on July 17, 2019, 05:16:00 AM

Quote from: stompix on July 17, 2019, 03:02:38 AM

I never understood why would anybody sell thousands of giftcards at half of their value.

One of the main reasons for this is to buy Bitcoin anonymously. You can buy gift cards using cash and then use those cards to buy BTC without exposing your bank account or personal information to risk.

Sorry but I still don't get it

, probably because I\ve never dealt with them.

But you say that that gifts-card can be used to buy BTC anonymously, this being a main advantage of the users.
So, why would you sell those at such ridiculous discounts when there is demand for them?

I'm confused about the huge discount some seller advertise, not the actual usage.

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

Half value = red flag.

My thoughts exactly.
And not only for deals on forums, even in a normal chain store when I see 50% off I usually check the price history with an app or the price in other stores and most of the time, in reality, the discount is 1%.

But thanks for the info about Microsoft rewards, o_e_l_e_o also:

Didn't know they were available in Europe, I thought it was an US offer only.
Off to gain some points...(joking, I won't touch bing unless they gave me a gift coupon for every search and I always fall asleep during those surveys)

Stedsm

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Quote from: philipma1957 on July 17, 2019, 08:12:44 AM

Half value = red flag.

But there are ways to earn 5 dollar amazon cards for free via the bing search engine.

I suspect someone has 1000 emails and with scrypt coding could earn 1000 x 5 = 5000 in cards a month.

I earn 1 every 22-28 days as does my wife.
--snip--

Wow, a correct example here.
But I've got a question here myself, except the carding issues that everyone's discussing here, what about those apps that give you free gift cards for doing some easy tasks provided there?

This carding issue isn't limited to just gift cards but sellers also sell some EC2 and SES accounts making them in a same way and also, the same things could happen as I told in the first post that they may run away, this time with very big amounts in BTC as SES costs you between $100 - $200 (depends on seller) and if they demand you to send BTC first, I believe chances are you'll surely get scammed as I was a victim of 3 people namely Huke Xavier, selling point (both sellers from Skype) and 3rd one was some138 (telegram). All of them will speak to you like professionals at first, and once you try to inspect more about the product they'll start abusing by telling you slangs and bad words like fuck you, get lost, etc. It made me feel like I was his slave and I didn't do his job, lol!

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: bernardos on July 17, 2019, 09:33:13 AM

How does it work and what do you need to do? Are you receiving points just for using bing and google?

See here for more information:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/rewards
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hub/4294457/microsoft-account-help#rewards

Essentially, there are a bunch of things you can do to earn Microsoft Reward points, including use Microsoft Edge, use Cortana, search on Bing via desktop and mobile, Xbox One games and quests, and additional daily tasks such as quizzes and surveys. There are a bunch of different rewards you can redeem them for, including Amazon gift cards, in the general ballpark of 5000 points for $5 of reward.

It's not exactly efficient, but if it's things you are doing any way, then you might as well cash in. The massive downside is obviously that you have to use a bunch of Microsoft products, which is terrible for privacy, and they are probably making more profit from selling your data than the cards are worth.

Winscosinally

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After getting scammed multiple times on paxful when I tried to buy amazon gift card I ended up giving up,anything that has to do with gift cards are mostly card,you can easily get cheated

Topic: Buying Amazon Gift cards with BTC? Beware! (Read 519 times)