Gift card scams are a major inconvenience for consumers, especially around the holidays. The Martin County Sheriff's Office just arrested two suspects accused of being part of a national gift card scam.
Caoyuan Liu and Lingham Chen are in custody after an employee at a Martin County grocery store alerted authorities to a couple tampering with a gift card display. Their scheme reportedly involved scratching off gift cards' seals and recording the account numbers then resealing them.
They would then go to another store and place those cards with the new cards, so consumers would not know the balance was gone.
MCSO believes Liu and Chen, who are from China but have been in Florida since April, are tied to a national theft ring operation. Investigators say that they are involved in cases in Manatee, Sarasota, Lee, and North Port. They also targeted stores in Orlando, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
Chen is in the U.S. on an student visa, and Liu is undocumented. They are being held at the Martin County Jail, and immigration detainers have been placed on them.
Detectives are urging consumers to inspect any gift card they buy to make sure the code has not been scratched off and the packaging hasn't been tampered with.
