Meet The Couple Who Got Gift Cards For Returning Stolen Items

If you think scams primarily happen on the internet, you should meet this pair. According to the Palm Beach Post, 28-year-old Laura Ticehurst and 39-year-old Hector Gonzalez are accused of running a real-life scheme of their own: pawning gift cards in order to make money. According to the site, the two were accused of pawning off over $4,000 worth of gift cards, which they obtained illegally in the first place. More on that below.

This might not seem like a huge deal if you compare it to, say, the hacker who exploited a glitch in Starbucks’ mobile app to reload his gift card with unlimited amounts of cash, but while we’re all wary of being ripped off online, this is a good reminder that it can happen in real life as well.

An article by the Sun-Sentinel mentioned that Ticehurst was arrested this Wednesday, but her boyfriend Gonzalez is still on the loose. The site went on to say that Ticehurst was being investigated for another crime when it was realized how many pawn shop transactions she and her boyfriend had been making recently. No word yet on how or if the stores victimized are going to take action.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the couple is accused of stealing items and getting gift cards by returning the stolen products. It gets better: Ticehurst and Gonzalez then pawned off the gift cards for even more cash. The site mentioned that the couple racked up over $4,000 by selling the ill-gotten gift cards.

This scheme has been attempted by others before, though with some variations that don’t involve getting gift cards. Sometimes, thieves will have two people go into the same store and buy two of each item they desire, allowing them to return one for cash and essentially take the other for free. Other similar “return fraud” schemes include finding an orphaned receipt and using it to claim you bought something you didn’t, as well as buying two similar-looking items and returning the more expensive one to get a better refund than what you paid.

What’s even worse about this scam is that innocent people can be caught in the crossfire. Purchasing stolen gift cards (or stolen anything) is illegal, even if you truly had no idea they were stolen. If you want to protect yourself against gift card theft and fraud, CreditCards.com has some resources you might want to check out. Also, it’s good to be skeptical of any “service” that allows you to buy gift cards for either far more or far less than they’re worth.

That being said, there are likely some legitimate services out there for buying gift cards, but again it’s better to do your homework before jumping right in. You wouldn’t want to find out the Laura Ticehursts or Hector Gonzalezes of the world used to own your gift card, right?

From the news sources that are talking about this story, it seems it’s still under development, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see what happens to the gift-card thieves.

[Image Credit: Hardwareretailing.com]