New Brunswick RCMP are warning the public about a scam involving prepaid credit card and gift cards in the Moncton area.
Police say they’re asking people to carefully examine the barcode when purchasing prepaid credit cards and gift cards — especially before loading any money on the cards.
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The Mounties say they’re investigating a complaint of a prepaid credit card’s barcode being altered.
The alteration to the card was detected before it was sold and the store was able to check all of the remaining cards and found that no other card had been altered.
They did discover that the package containing the credit card had been tampered with, was resealed and then placed back on the shelf to be purchased.
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Police believe that if the altered barcode had not been detected that any money loaded onto the card could have been placed on a different card — allowing the fraudster to access the money.
Although the change was detected before the card was sold, officers are still issuing a warning. Similar scams have reportedly occurred in other provinces as recently as 2017.