A local non-profit that helps grant wishes to children in need, is the latest victim of scammers.
Jamie’s Dream Team has granted more than 10,000 wishes since they started back in 2005. This week they have five families in Disney World. One of those families is of a 7-year-old boy who is fighting lung and brain cancer. They arrived yesterday, only to discover their new Visa gift cards had a $0 balance.
“They have a little boy who has cancer and they called me and said, ‘hey our gift cards aren’t working.’ We jumped online checked the balance and it said the gift card was used.”
Jamie took her frustrations to Facebook where she heard from more people saying they bought new Visa gift cards that had a $0 balance when they went to use them for the first time.
She showed Channel 11 a printout of the websites used by the gift card. She said the is the second time this happened to one of their families recently, and it happened with several of their gift cards at Christmas.
“This is not the first time this has happened. This has been happening for months with gift cards, and what we do is we hurry up and Venmo or Zelle whatever the case may be for the family to continue their trip,” Jamie said.
“We call Visa and say, ‘hey listen, this is what is happening, we are out of money again’ and get no response.”
The FBI says this sounds like a scam where thieves often peel off the sticker on the back, get activation and pin numbers, put the sticker back on and hang it back up on the rack. Once they see the card is activated, they quickly spend the money.
Frustrating to hear for Jamie who is still trying to get refunded, and working to help more families simultaneously.
“We have 25 families going to Disney next week, and they all have gift cards!”
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