The gift card scam spreading across Australia | The Business | ABC NEWS
An ABC investigation has discovered gift cards that have been tampered with are being sold by Australia’s biggest supermarkets, with charges even being laid over the issue. It is leaving shoppers confused and stressed, and raising questions about whether this is linked to a multi-billion-dollar criminal scam.
The ABC has inspected customers’ receipts, gift card photos, and correspondence with companies like Coles, Apple and Australia’s gift card distributors. Of the 19 reports of strange gift cards the ABC documented, many were on Apple cards that can be redeemed for the tech giant’s electronics. Apple declined our request for an interview but did defend its packaging, which it changed early last year. Coles says “gift card tampering and fraud is an evolving challenge affecting retailers and customers both in Australia and internationally, and Coles takes the issue extremely seriously.” While Woolworth said, “tampering affects a small proportion of our gift cards and is a shared problem across the retail industry.”
ABC News can reveal that last year, Coles worked with police to bust a member of an alleged criminal syndicate that was tampering with gift cards in supermarkets in New South Wales. Court documents show a man was arrested for placing Apple Gift cards that had been tampered with on the shelves of at least five different Coles stores in Sydney.
It is unclear how much further this crime has spread, or if any authority is collecting wider information. The Australian Federal Police and the money laundering organisation AUSTRAC both said gift card fraud is not their domain, while the authority that handles complaints about financial products has limited scope over gift cards.
Australian private investigator Ken Gamble took a look at the ABC’s investigation. He said the reports of tampering occurring mostly around capital cities indicated it could be organised crime.
In the United States, the US Department of Homeland Security has a taskforce specifically dedicated to investigating gift card fraud. Project Red Hook was set up in 2024 because there were such widespread reports of tampering. Adam Parks said in the industry, it’s dubbed ‘card draining’. He said the investigation had uncovered links to money laundering in China, human trafficking and even murder.
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Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-31/inside-the-gift-card-tampering-scam-spreading-nationally/107074588
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