Consumer complaint received 2025-04-26 00:00:00
Product: Prepaid card — Gift card
Issue: Problem with a purchase or transfer — Card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase or transfer
Company: Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc.
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
Yesterday I unfortunately fell victim to a well oiled gift card scam. Within moments of understanding I was being scammed I began alerting the police, target gift card services, my banks, and XXXX to begin correcting the situation. All these places have full accounts of how the entire scam went down, I'm here specifically to file a report how the XXXX Gift Card Services handles these situations. For more detailed information regarding the fraud feel free to contact the XXXX Police Department ( XXXX ) Tracking # XXXX. 
FTC Report # : XXXX Target Gift Card Services ( XXXX ) -Case # XXXX I still have all the gift cards that I, under false pretenses, ended up giving the numbers to the scammers. As well as the receipts from where they were purchased. I provided all these numbers to XXXX Gift Card Services when filing the report at which point they told me all the funds on those cards had been used. It was 12, {$300.00} gift cards worth of purchases. 

I received an email a couple hours later informing me of the following " I'm sorry that you were a victim of this unfortunate situation. At this time, we've confirmed that we're unable to recover any funds.As a next step, please reach out to your financial institution to make them aware of this unfortunate situation. In addition, I encourage you to file a police report with local law enforcement. XXXX will work directly with law enforcement as requested. Lastly, please report this to the Federal Trade Commission. Here 's a link with various resources to assist you with this effort : https : //security.target.com. 

Again, I'm sorry we're unable to assist you further with this situation. 

If you have any questions, please give us a call at XXXX with case number XXXX. 
We appreciate your understanding. 
Sincerely, XXXX The XXXX team XXXX '' Today, XX/XX/year>, I called them back to inquire more about the matter as this was not a satisfactory response for me. I wanted to know what they were actually doing to catch the people who scammed me. I asked if they were able to track where the purchases were made and who made them. I asked if they were able to stop them at all. 

They informed me that these gift cards were linked to accounts, the scammers were inside of Targets purchasing items while stealing the gift card numbers, and there was nothing they could do to reimburse me. They basically let me know they have all the information to go after the people who committed a crime against me, but were still unable to reverse the purchases to reimburse me. 
Now my biggest issue alongside all of that is this. They will cooperate with the FTC and Police Department XXXX they reach out needing any information regarding the matter. 

I told them it's really unfortunate they aren't willing help the victims of these crimes when they know who to go after to be reimbursed after righting the harm caused on their REAL HONEST consumers. 

I understand this is a very common scam, and I hate that I fell for it. But these gift card agencies also need to start being held accountable and have more things in place to protect the consumers who aren't out there causing harm and stealing.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation