The next time someone tampers with a gift card in Florida, they could be buying a felony.
Starting Wednesday, Florida is cracking down on gift card fraud under a law that defines the crime in statute and establishes a schedule of penalties, the least of which is a first-degree misdemeanor carrying a potential jail sentence of up to one year.
The new law defines gift card fraud as acquiring or retaining gift card information without permission, tampering with cards or packaging, or using stolen card data to obtain goods, services or money.
If the value of the ill-gotten goods or services exceeds $750 — or if prosecutors can show a series of smaller frauds adding up to that amount — violators face a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Lawmakers in April unanimously passed the new law (SB 1198), which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in June. St. Petersburg Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie sponsored the upper-chamber measure, while St. Augustine Republican Rep. Sam Greco and Coral Springs Democratic Rep. Dan Daley carried its House companion.
The legislation addresses a real problem. In 2023 alone, gift card-related fraud accounted for $217 million of the record $10 billion lost in scams across the U.S., according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data.
Florida has the highest rate of per capita fraud and identity theft, according to the FTC. Last year, the Sunshine State reported 474,314 cases of fraud, with a median loss of $520 and total losses from general fraud exceeding $866 million.
Scams this year led to the arrest of three people in South Florida who ran a “gift card fraud ring,” two men who were caught in Naples with 176 gift cards valued at $15,000 and a pair of Chinese nationals who tampered with gift cards at 42 grocery stores across multiple counties.
There are various ways criminals use gift cards to defraud victims. One tactic is to contact the victim by phone, email, or text, pretending to be someone they know or an entity they trust — such as a bank, secret shopping organization, or government agency — and ask the victim to put money on a gift card and then share the redemption code.
People should be wary of such forms of contact and requests and especially skeptical when the person contacting them appears to be in a rush due to desperate or urgent circumstances.
Another method thieves use is to strip a gift card’s packaging, copy its data and wait until an unsuspecting shopper loads funds onto it before draining the account.
“This is a complicated scheme,” said Daley, who works as an Assistant State Attorney. Greco noted that without the updated law, police and prosecutors wouldn’t have “the necessary tools to combat this misconduct effectively.”
The legislation drew backing from business and consumer groups, including the International Council of Shopping Centers, Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, AARP, Interactive Communications International, and the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.
Ahead of the Senate’s approval of the measure in April, DiCeglie said the steeper punishments would effectively “kill the Grinch.”
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