$9.2 million gift card scheme lands West Bloomfield brothers in prison
WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI -- A gift card scheme that totaled an estimated $9.2 million in fraudulent transactions has landed a pair of Michigan brothers in prison for up to four years. The brothers would buy gift cards for retailers such as Walmart or store-valued Visa and MasterCard gift cards from customers who obtained the gift cards illegally. For example, they would pay 60% of the value of a Kohl’s gift card. They would then turn around and sell the gift cards to online resellers for near close to the full value. The scheme operated from February 2016 through February 2018 and in that time, the brothers sold roughly $6.3 million worth of gift cards and processed $2.9 million worth of in store-valued card transactions.
mlive.com