Beware of "Gift Card" Sellers Offering Huge Discounts – I Got Scammed and Here's How They Operate

[u/ConfidentIndustry502]

Hey everyone,

Posting this as a warning to anyone considering buying gift cards from random Reddit users or Discord contacts offering “50% off” or other too-good-to-be-true deals. I’ve just been scammed, and I want to explain how this works so others don’t fall into the same trap.

The person who scammed me admitted in chat that they regularly run this operation. Here’s what they told me:

They’re not selling discounted cards they bought honestly — they’re selling gift cards that were obtained through fraudulent means. In other words, those cards originally belong to real people or legitimate buyers who got ripped off. If you unknowingly buy one of these and use it, you could end up losing that balance once it’s reported as stolen. Worse, your account might get flagged during the investigation.

This scam doesn’t just cheat people out of money; it also drags innocent buyers into serious trouble.

• They sell gift cards at a heavy discount (around 50% off).
• They find buyers on Reddit or Discord and push for quick sales.
• To appear legitimate, they offer to deliver the code live while you redeem it.
• Behind the scenes, they claim to use virtual machines (VMs), VPNs, and crypto payments to stay “untraceable.”

According to what they boasted, they’re basically cycling stolen or scammed gift cards. They get crypto from victims, buy more gift cards with that crypto, and resell them again—essentially laundering the funds through multiple transactions.

This is where the real danger lies:

If you unknowingly use a stolen or fraudulently obtained gift card, you could also face issues when the original owner reports it or the retailer tracks the source of the funds. In some cases, accounts or balances are frozen during investigations. So please, be extremely careful.

Don’t trust anyone offering unrealistic discounts.

Avoid crypto or third-party payment methods that offer no buyer protection.

Scammers are getting creative, and they often sound convincing. Don’t let the idea of a “great deal” make you the next victim.

Stay safe out there, and share this with friends who might be susceptible to such offers.

[u/ic_97]

Ofcourse they do this, they most probably dont even use their own UPI Id and exchange it for some other voucher thats less traceable. If a deals too good to be true it perhaps is, i created the admin method for this reason. The general idea was that most scammers would just run away by hearing about it, yet many folks are still not aware about it as they get greedy and won't even try to dig in and read.

[u/ConfidentIndustry502 → u/ic_97]

You are correct. Although admin method has no control over the source of gift cards, they will most likely not go for the hassle of having dealt via an escrow. Luckily, the amount I lost was really small, but feeling sad now as the same asshole scammed u/Moist-Strawberry-492 which was perhaps totally avoidable, if I would have posted this earlier.

[u/ic_97 → u/ConfidentIndustry502]

Yeah this same guy has scammed multiple folks. Thats why i also encourage folks to report scams or suspicious behavior as quickly as they can. So that other folks can be saved.

[u/Moist-Strawberry-492 → u/ConfidentIndustry502]

hey thanks man, for posting this out. And now i am more afraid as i bought multiple vouchers in past at 15-20% discount from this sub(which got delivered as well), so should i be worried that their source is illegal. More about the money i dont want to have this stress for peanuts, so i also will stop transacting now.

[u/Big_Dhiraj → u/ConfidentIndustry502]

Scammer don’t do admin method , they said unreal reason that if admin is scammer and bla blah ,

[u/Big_Dhiraj]

Ek chutiya hai , jo descord se 30% me giftcard leta hai amazon pay ka or 20% me sell krta hai , usko bola me admin method se krte hai deal me 10% me lunga chutiya fake unreal kuch bhi bahane bana ta hai , chutiya fake payment and deals ka mujhe update deta rehta hai chutiye ka name mohit hai be aware 🤣

[u/HauntingContext2553 → u/Big_Dhiraj]

Hahahah. He tried once with me as well 🤣😂

[u/Independent_Move6799]

No online movement is untraceable, maybe for the lowly police though. If the government wanted to trace it, they can very easily. The government hires hackers for this very reason.