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Most of us check our gift card balances online, even though who actually keeps those receipts that tell us how much money we have left on them, makes an apparent oversight by Google all the worse. The ad for the fake Target gift card balance checker was approved by the search engine.
A user on r/assholedesign discovered a mistake when searching for Target gift card balance on mobile, and found an ad titled "Check Gift Card Balance - Target." The site is actually called "bristolhirevan" and not "Target." The ad says it will let you check your gift card balance immediately, and that it also offers all van sizes to fit your needs. We found the same ad when we searched for the exact phrase.
The interface of the fake site looks like the real thing, even though the actual Target site requires you to sign in to check your gift card balance. The URL, which still has the "bristolhirevan" domain, and the fact that every single link on the page leads to the real Target homepage, are off. If you were in a rush, and were distracted enough to ignore the mention of vans, you might accidentally enter your gift card's number and security code here, resulting in it being stolen.
There is a rise in gift card fraud. In the first nine months of the year of 2021, the FTC reported that gift card victims lost more than all of the previous year. FTC data shows that people were cheated out of $35 million of Target gift cards last year, more than any other brand.
The FTC has pointed out that gift card scam are often done over the phone, with the person pretending to be an employee of a company such as Amazon, or even a federal agency, demanding a payment in the form of a gift card. Even as ads on Google, fake balance checker sites are often hidden in plain sight.
Target is one of the most popular sites for scam artists to replicate, according to a 2020 report from Bleeping Computer. The Verge reached out to the search engine company to find out how this scam may have slipped through its ad review process and if it will be removed.
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