Gift Card Fraud in the United States

Value is demanded under a threat to publish intimate or compromising material, whether real or purported. The DOJ’s New Hampshire appeal for victims of Apple gift card fraud also lists sextortion among the relevant situations. This documents the use of cards in such contexts; it does not provide a separate national statistic or establish that every such threat is linked to the same network. [S50]

13. The “recovery agent” who demands another payment

After the initial loss, the victim is approached by someone promising to recover the money, claiming to represent an authority, or invoking legal services. A new fee is demanded, sometimes through another payment method that is difficult to reverse. Pennsylvania warns about recovery scams. Knowing details of the first fraud does not establish the caller’s legitimacy; the article recommends independent verification before any additional payment. [S09]

The card, code, or account is compromised

In the second family, the holder does not have to cooperate with an impostor. A card can be bought legitimately and still reach the recipient with no balance. The essential distinction is between theft of data before activation, diversion of the load, and digital compromise of an account or balance system. Federal Trade Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Wisconsin warnings document these different areas of risk. [S03] [S07] [S70]

14. Card draining after physical tampering

The access details of a card offered for sale are compromised before a legitimate buyer loads it. Someone else can then spend the value. In this variant, the buyer may still possess both the card and the receipt. The FTC recommends inspecting packaging and retaining documentation, but a visual inspection is not a technical guarantee. Arizona and Kentucky provide criminal case references for operations involving compromised physical cards. [S03] [S24] [S38]

15. Activation diverted through a fake barcode

The FBI has warned about counterfeit barcodes that can direct loaded value to an instrument other than the one the buyer believes they are purchasing. The distinction from draining is important: here, the problem may occur when value is loaded, not only after the money has reached the correct card. The issuer and merchant must be able to correlate the instrument sold, the activation, and the transaction record. [S07]

16. Theft from the mail or the destruction chain

Cards may be stolen before reaching the recipient or from batches that an organization believes no longer represent value. South Dakota has a case involving mail theft by a postal employee. A Virginia case documented cards taken from a stream intended for destruction. For internal control purposes, a transport or destruction contract does not replace value reconciliation and confirmation that the instruments have been deactivated. [S62] [S16]

17. Fake balance-checking websites

The holder searches for a way to check a balance and enters valid card details into a page that merely imitates the legitimate service. AARP Virginia has warned about this form of code harvesting. The attack differs from a payment requested over the phone: victims believe they are checking their own property. The issuer’s official address, accessed independently, is a safer reference than a search result or advertisement using its name. [S08]

18. Fake digital rewards and gift card phishing

A message announces a free card or reward and asks for a form to be completed, identifying information, or a payment. In this situation, the card may not exist at all: it is the bait, while the actual objective is information or another sum of money. Minnesota, Arkansas, and Vermont describe such offers. These reports should not automatically be added to losses involving cards that were actually issued and drained. [S44] [S25] [S66]

19. Taking over the account that holds the value—account takeover

The attacker accesses a customer account and uses its associated value. In the Dunkin’ case, the New York authority described unauthorized access using reused login credentials, followed by the use or resale of card value. The September 2020 civil settlement required security measures and refunds for eligible customers. The announced $650,000 represented penalties and costs, not the total stolen balances. This was a civil settlement, not a criminal conviction. [S10]

20. Digital compromise of card numbers and abusive balance queries

Some cases involve neither theft of the plastic card nor persuading its holder to disclose the code. In Washington, Jeffery Douglas Mann was sentenced for a network that illegitimately obtained card value by compromising card numbers. Wisconsin has also warned about abusive digital balance queries. Controls must treat the balance-checking and redemption services as security-sensitive interfaces, not merely informational pages. [S68] [S70]

21. Redemption beyond the balance through a system error

A balance ledger that allows excess redemption can turn a software fault into a substantial loss. In the Pennsylvania case against Chad Douglas Broudy, prosecutors alleged approximately $320,582 in excess gift-card redemptions. The Philadelphia Inquirer later reported his guilty plea and September 2019 sentence. The merchant lesson is balance integrity and reconciliation: a displayed balance and an approved transaction must agree. [S59] [S73]

Fraud passes through the merchant’s processes

22. Buying the card with stolen payment details

The gift card is purchased with a compromised banking instrument, then its value is spent or transferred before the funding problem is resolved. The Krechet case in New Jersey documents this link between stolen payment details and gift cards. For the merchant, an electronically delivered order may generate two different records: value spent within the gift card program and a dispute over the original source of funds. [S51]

23. Obtaining activation without an actual payment

The buyer causes a sale to be completed even though the merchant has not received payment. The Mattek Scott case, resolved in Rhode Island in January 2026, included goods and prepaid cards obtained in this way. The control is straightforward in principle: match activation to evidence that payment actually arrived. A checkout screen saying “complete” is not enough on its own. [S60]

24. The issuance system or an employee’s identity is compromised

Fraud may attack the right to create or load value, not merely the right to pay. The Apple case in Texas involved unauthorized issuance through compromised commercial infrastructure; in Missouri, unlawfully obtained employee identifiers were used. These are two different routes to the same control problem: an apparently authorized system may record an operation that is not backed by a legitimate merchant decision. [S64] [S46]

25. An authorized employee issues value for personal benefit

An insider may have genuine access but use it for orders or activations with no legitimate business purpose. In the Home Depot case in Georgia, discrepancies in gift card records led to discovery of the fraud. The sentence published in February 2026 shows why controls cannot stop at authentication: an authenticated person can abuse the permissions they have been granted. [S31]

26. Personal purchases disguised as organizational expenses

Gift cards are bought lawfully from the issuer but paid for with an organization’s money on the basis of false justifications. The Michael Meenan case in Indiana and the Maria Lana Gilbert case in Oregon include this misuse. The risk is distinct from compromise of the purchased card: the funding or approval of the purchase is illegitimate. In both entries, the totals also include goods other than gift cards, so they are not presented as losses exclusively within card programs. [S35] [S58]

27. False returns turn goods into store credit

Stolen products or illegitimate returns can generate cash, store credit, or gift cards. Cases in Connecticut, California, and Oklahoma illustrate variations of this route. The control indicator is not simply that a card was issued on return, but the consistency between the original purchase, the returned item, the person requesting the refund, and the value granted. Legitimate returns must not be confused with these frauds. [S28] [S26] [S57]

28. Resale and brokering of stolen value

Intermediaries may exist between the person who obtains the code and the person who spends the balance. The Richard Verret case, prosecuted in Louisiana, documented an illicit online marketplace for gift card data. The risk to the buyer is provenance: the existence of a working code at a particular moment does not establish that the seller has the right to sell it. Nor does discounted resale, by itself, prove a crime. [S39]

29. Value is routed through a merchant involved in the scheme

The card may become an intermediate step between a stolen banking instrument and a business’s receipts. The Caffe Aficionado case in Virginia linked such transactions to American Express gift cards. The open-loop label matters: this is not only about a balance restricted to a single store. In mixed cases of this kind, the total amount of banking fraud should not be presented, without separating its components, as an exclusively gift card loss. [S67]

Chargebacks: fraud can also lie in the evidence or the metrics

30. Deliberately false disputes of authorized purchases

Mastercard describes situations in which a buyer intentionally disputes a transaction they authorized in order to obtain an improper benefit. Applied analytically to gift cards, the risk is retaining value already spent while making an unfounded request for a refund of the purchase payment. This is an application of the general mechanism, not a new criminal case attributed to a state. Confusion about a merchant’s name, an unrecognized purchase, and an intentionally false statement are not the same thing: intent cannot be inferred merely from the existence of a dispute. [S72]

31. Misleading evidence used against a dispute

In April 2023, the FTC and Florida authorities alleged that Chargebacks911 supplied misleading evidence to prevent the reversal of transactions disputed by consumers, including images that did not accurately reflect the relevant purchasing process. These are civil allegations attributed to the authorities, not a criminal fraud conviction. The settlement announced in November prohibited deceptive practices in dispute handling. [S11] [S12]

The federal order was entered on November 29, 2023, based on the parties’ agreement and without additional factual findings. The lesson for gift card analysis is to separate two questions: was the card used, and is the evidence relied upon to reject the dispute accurate? A redemption does not automatically validate every merchant claim, and a legitimate chargeback request does not become fraudulent because it disadvantages the merchant. [S13]

32. Artificial transactions that dilute the chargeback rate

In the U.S. action involving Apex Capital Group and Transact Pro, the FTC alleged that small, artificial transactions funded through prepaid cards increased apparent transaction volume to reduce the observed chargeback rate. The January 2020 settlement included a $3.5 million payment obligation and restrictions on processing and merchant monitoring. This is a U.S. civil case; it is not presented as a criminal conviction or a study of another country’s market. [S14] [S15]

The FTC also made allegations of metric manipulation in the Chargebacks911 case. Financial products must not be conflated: the description of that program referred to prepaid debit cards, which does not automatically make every transaction a gift card sale. A lower rate achieved through an artificial denominator does not establish that the number of genuine disputes or the harm to consumers has fallen. [S11] [S12]

A payment dispute needs honest evidence on both sides. A customer can misuse a chargeback, a merchant can submit misleading evidence, and a processor can distort the statistics. None of those possibilities makes a legitimate dispute fraudulent.

Who loses, and why the amounts cannot simply be added together

A single scheme may affect the consumer who paid for the card, the merchant that supplied goods, the issuer, or an organization whose money funded the purchase. Public documents do not always show how the loss was ultimately allocated among them. The register preserves the nature of each amount: face value, reported loss, potential loss, forfeited proceeds, or court-ordered restitution.

Kentucky provides an example of potential exposure, not a demonstrated loss. South Carolina allows $30,000 in gift cards to be distinguished from $100,000 in cash. In Utah, the same $217,200 appears in the obligations of two defendants and must not be counted twice. These are three different reasons why mechanically adding up press releases would produce a misleading figure. [S38] [S61] [S65]

Likewise, a restitution obligation does not establish that the victim has already received the money. A number of cards seized by investigators does not automatically represent loaded cards or distinct victims. Without the necessary data, this article calculates neither a total loss across the 50 states nor a fraud rate per resident or per card issued. Those measures would require a comparable dataset with a common period, definitions, and denominators.

T04. Similar-looking figures can measure different things

Figures retain the period, product scope and procedural meaning supplied by their sources. Court-ordered restitution is an obligation; it does not by itself establish that victims have been paid.

What can be done: controls tied to the mechanism, not the label

The following measures are editorial recommendations derived from the documented mechanisms, not a list of universal legal obligations or a security certification. For a merchant or app provider, the objective is to identify where value can be created, moved, or spent without a verifiable justification.

At the display rack and at activation

Useful measures include batch inspections, segregating suspicious cards, matching the instrument sold to its activation, and providing a clear reporting route for cards purchased with no balance. Visual inspection must be combined with transaction data; it cannot detect every compromise on its own. Merchants can train staff to recognize pressure being exerted on a buyer without automatically treating every large purchase as fraud. The rationale for these controls follows from the FTC and FBI warnings. [S03] [S07]

In the application and balance records

Recommendations include protecting accounts, detecting unusual access, controlling access to balance services, and reconciling issuance, loading, spending, cancellation, and refunds. Before launch, a provider should be able to demonstrate that repeated or concurrent operations do not create additional value. These are control proposals inspired by account takeover, digital compromise, and alleged over-redemption cases—not claims that a particular application is vulnerable. [S10] [S68] [S59]

In employee operations and returns

Internal order approval, value activation, and accounting reconciliation should have independent checks. Logs must support retrospective analysis of changes, and gift card purchases paid for by an organization should have verifiable recipients and justifications. For returns, analysis must link the credit granted to the original transaction and item. These controls address the risk areas illustrated by the Georgia, Indiana, and Connecticut cases. [S31] [S35] [S28]

In resale, refunds, and disputes

Providers should explain what evidence they retain about the origin of value, how they respond to reports of a stolen code, and what happens to the remaining balance after a dispute. In chargebacks, evidence must describe the actual transaction, and reported metrics must not be contaminated by artificial operations. The FTC civil cases show why the integrity of the evidence and the integrity of the reported dispute rate need separate checks. [S15] [S13]

T05. Put the control where the value changes hands

This is an editorial control framework drawn from the cases. It is not a certification or a universal list of legal obligations.

Recovering the money: sometimes possible, never to be promised

The FTC recommends promptly contacting the issuer, keeping the card and receipt, asking whether a refund may be possible, and reporting the fraud. Reporting may be useful even when the incident is not recent. The FBI’s IC3 mechanism is also available for online components. Reporting does not guarantee recovery, but neither is the claim that “the money can never be recovered” justified. [S02] [S07]

In the incident reported by Hawaii on August 3, 2026, the victim recovered the funds with help from the financial institution. In the Oregon BLM case, the DOJ stated that restitution had been paid in full by sentencing. These are two different mechanisms, not a promise to other victims. Refunds provided for in an older agreement, such as Dunkin’s 2020 settlement, must not be presented as a program still open today. [S32] [S58] [S10]

For a victim, a useful incident file should preserve the chronology, messages, receipts, transaction identifiers, and responses from the issuer and merchant. Full codes should not be published on social media or sent to supposed recovery agents. Paying such an intermediary in advance may cause a second loss. [S09]

Atlas of the 50 states

The entries run alphabetically. Each date identifies the source or a specifically stated court event. The account is attributed to that dated document; historical allegations are not presented as findings of guilt or as claims about a case’s current status. For multistate schemes, the amount belongs to the described case, not exclusively to the state in the heading.

T06. The 50-state evidence index

Choose a state name to jump to its full entry. The map, index and atlas describe the same set of selected records.

Alabama

July 30, 2025 · Indictment announced July 30, 2025

A federal indictment charged Jiadong Cao and Xuejun Zheng with possessing counterfeit and unauthorized access devices. The Justice Department linked the allegations to a Pelham traffic stop where officers found more than 5,000 gift cards. That inventory is not a dollar-loss figure. The indictment records allegations, not a finding of guilt. [S22]

Geographical connection: Pelham enforcement action; Northern District of Alabama prosecution.

Alaska

May 25, 2021 · Official warning; no individual case selected

The state Department of Law described fraudulent payment demands, including demands for gift cards, made in the names of federal authorities or companies. The source is a consumer protection warning, not a criminal judgment or a measure of local incidence. [S23]

Geographical connection: Warning addressed to the Alaska public.

Arizona

September 30, 2024 · Sentence imposed on September 17, 2024

Yuniel Rodriguez-Leon received two years and nine months in prison, followed by two and a half years of probation, in a gift card cloning case. The documented conduct involved Walmart stores in Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties in 2023. [S24]

Geographical connection: Operations in three Arizona counties.

Arkansas

No date displayed · Official warning

The official gift card guide warns about offers of “free” cards and purchases from unreliable sources. The entry documents the authority’s recognition of the risk; it does not identify a convicted person or a verified local loss. [S25]

Geographical connection: State prevention material.

California

September 25, 2024 · Sentence: 60 months

Michael O’Brien Jr. was sentenced to five years for a fraud affecting Target. The case describes abuse of gift card and return processes in California and 35 other states. The approximately $508,000 loss is distinct from the intended loss of more than $1 million. [S26]

Geographical connection: Local conduct and federal case; multistate network.

Colorado

March 24, 2023 · Official warning

The consumer protection authority warned about impostors using tax season to demand payments, including through gift cards. The message does not present an individual criminal case. It does not establish an amount of gift card fraud in Colorado. [S27]

Geographical connection: Tax-scam warning for state residents.

Connecticut

February 27, 2025 · Sentence: nine months

Chester Culler was sentenced for a fraudulent-return scheme involving TJX stores across 30 states. He was arrested in Wethersfield. The total of more than $400,000 concerns retail fraud involving cash and store value, not exclusively gift card losses in Connecticut. [S28]

Geographical connection: Arrest in Wethersfield; local federal case.

Delaware

July 10, 2019 · Official warning

The state police published warnings about scams in which victims are pressured to pay, including with gift cards. The selected source is preventive: it provides no convicted person’s name, stolen balance, or separate gift card statistic. [S29]

Geographical connection: Delaware State Police warning.

Florida

November 24, 2025 · Guilty plea entered September 23, 2025

Cao Yuan Liu pleaded guilty on September 23, 2025 to a conspiracy involving counterfeit or unauthorized gift cards. The Justice Department's November announcement described tampered cards placed in grocery stores during 2024 and approximately 42 stores targeted across Florida. The selected record establishes a guilty plea; it does not quantify consumers' total losses. [S30]

Geographical connection: Stores in St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Georgia

February 26, 2026 · Sentence: 37 months

Felecia Ingram was sentenced for stealing approximately 8,325 Home Depot gift cards with a total value of $4,085,043. The court separately ordered $3,946,776 in restitution. The case concerns abuse of employee access; the restitution amount is not identical to the value of the cards. [S31]

Geographical connection: Internal company access, Georgia.

Hawaii

August 3, 2026 · Officially reported incident; no charged person identified

Authorities reported that a victim received messages in the attorney general’s name and was asked to send photographs of cards and codes. The victim recovered the funds with help from the financial institution. The amount and the existence of an individual prosecution are not specified. [S32]

Geographical connection: Victim described in the Hawaii warning.

Idaho

November 26, 2025 · Official warning

The attorney general warned about calls invoking absence from jury duty and demanding payment of fictitious fines, including through gift cards. This is a warning about a scam pattern, not evidence of a conviction or a measured level of losses. [S33]

Geographical connection: Warning for Idaho.

Illinois

February 13, 2024 · Prison sentences

Hongying Wang and Guangwei Gao each received prison sentences of more than a year for trafficking in counterfeit cards. The case involved Target stores and an enforcement action in Belleville. The more than 6,100 cards mentioned in the release are items involved in the investigation, not a loss expressed in dollars. [S34]

Geographical connection: Belleville; operations in the Midwest.

Indiana

July 21, 2026 · Sentence: 18 months

Michael Meenan, a former IT director at an Indianapolis nonprofit, was sentenced for personal purchases paid for by the organization. They included Apple and Southwest gift cards and Amazon reloads. The $543,521 restitution covers the entire fraud, including other goods; it is not an exclusively gift card total. [S35]

Geographical connection: Indianapolis organization.

Iowa

February 23, 2023 · Local police warning

Algona police published a warning about the use of gift cards in scams. The selected material documents local prevention efforts, not an indictment. It is not used to claim that Iowa has more or less fraud than states with criminal cases in the register. [S36]

Geographical connection: Local warning, Algona.

Kansas

No date displayed · Official warning

Public protection materials describe impostors and other scams that may demand gift cards as a payment method. This reference does not allow a statewide loss to be established or a convicted person to be identified in an individual gift card fraud case. [S37]

Geographical connection: Prevention materials for Kansas.

Kentucky

May 2, 2025 · Sentence: 27 months

Yongjian You was sentenced for mail fraud in a gift card compromise operation that included Kroger stores in Lexington. The release mentions potential exposure of more than $1.1 million. That was potential exposure, not a measured loss already borne by buyers. [S38]

Geographical connection: Stores and operations in Lexington.

Louisiana

June 26, 2023 · Sentence: 57 months

Richard Verret was sentenced in a federal case involving an illicit online marketplace for gift card data. The DOJ cited more than 500,000 stolen account numbers and forfeiture of more than $810,000 in proceeds. The case’s venue does not automatically place all victims in Louisiana. [S39]

Geographical connection: Federal case in the Middle District of Louisiana.

Maine

December 1, 2021 · Official consumer warning

The financial institutions regulator warns about demands for gift cards to satisfy alleged obligations and about consumer fraud. The entry is a prevention source. The selected material does not establish the name, loss amount, or outcome of an individual criminal case. [S40]

Geographical connection: Financial warning for Maine consumers.

Maryland

July 27, 2023 · Sentence imposed on July 26, 2023: 36 months

Yong Chen was sentenced in a scheme that obtained cards from victims deceived by technical-support and refund pretexts. The DOJ reported a scheme worth approximately $561,000 and a $169,950 restitution obligation for the defendant. Redemptions included Maryland and Virginia. [S41]

Geographical connection: Local redemptions; victims in several states.

Massachusetts

December 3, 2024 · Local police warning

Cambridge police included fraudulent gift card demands and risks associated with cards or deceptive offers in their holiday warning. This is a local prevention reference, not a judicial tally. No loss calculated from national data is attributed to the state. [S42]

Geographical connection: Local warning, Cambridge.

Michigan

March 14, 2025 · Charges announced March 14, 2025

Michigan's Attorney General announced charges against Guangji Zhang and Huachao Sun over alleged tampering with gift cards sold at Metro Detroit Meijer stores. Investigators reported more than 3,000 cards seized. The announcement documents charges and a seizure, not a conviction or a quantified consumer loss. [S43]

Geographical connection: Meijer stores in Metro Detroit.

Minnesota

No date displayed · Official warning

The attorney general explains the risks of reward and free-gift-card offers that seek personal data or payments. This is a warning about luring victims with an apparent prize, not about draining a card they bought. It does not document an individual conviction. [S44]

Geographical connection: Prevention material for Minnesota.

Mississippi

Official financial fraud warning

The secretary of state warns about financial scams and suspicious payment demands, including through gift cards. The selected source does not isolate a local gift card case or an amount attributable to such cards. For that reason, the state remains in the warnings category. [S45]

Geographical connection: Official financial fraud prevention warning.

Missouri

July 25, 2024 · Sentence: three years

Rashad Niles Shahid was sentenced for gift card fraud using unlawfully obtained employee identifiers. The case includes stores in Maplewood, Manchester, Florissant, and Shrewsbury. The court ordered $88,269 in restitution; this judicial obligation does not establish that the money has already been recovered. [S46]

Geographical connection: Stores in Missouri.

Montana

February 21, 2023 · Official warning

The Office of Consumer Protection reported calls in which impostors pose as law enforcement representatives and demand money, including gift cards. The overall number of reports in a warning is not converted here into a gift card fraud statistic. [S47]

Geographical connection: Warning for the Montana public.

Nebraska

April 4, 2024 · Official warning

The authority warned about people claiming that a relative has an emergency and requesting payments, including through gift cards. The source describes the deception mechanism without establishing the identity of a convicted person or an individual loss that could be mapped as a case. [S48]

Geographical connection: Warning for Nebraska.

Nevada

December 22, 2025 · Official prevention campaign

Nevada announced its participation in a multistate campaign against gift card fraud. The release is useful for documenting the public warning, but it is not a criminal case and does not measure the campaign’s effectiveness or the state’s fraud rate. [S49]

Geographical connection: State-announced prevention campaign.

New Hampshire

March 16, 2026 · Investigation / victim identification

The U.S. Department of Justice and Homeland Security Investigations sought to identify victims of an Apple gift card scheme involving conduct from October 1, 2023 through September 1, 2025. The announcement is not a conviction. The stated response deadline, May 15, 2026, had already passed by the date of this article. [S50]

Geographical connection: Action by New Hampshire authorities; potentially nationwide victims.

New Jersey

May 4, 2018 · Guilty verdict

Nikolay Krechet was found guilty in a case that included obtaining gift cards through stolen payment details. The FBI subsequently published a wanted notice after he left before his sentencing date. The verdict and the FBI notice are distinct records of the case. [S51] [S20]

Geographical connection: Federal case with victims and transactions connected to New Jersey.

New Mexico

No date displayed · Official warning

The Workers’ Compensation Administration warns about impostors invoking judges, lawyers, or insurance benefits and demanding the purchase of gift cards before a supposed payment. This is a prevention alert, not a judicial finding against an identified individual. [S52]

Geographical connection: Warning from the workers’ compensation administration.

New York

July 7, 2026 · Sentence: 70 months in federal prison

Jun Wang was sentenced to 70 months in prison for a money laundering conspiracy involving gift cards bought by scam victims across the United States. The Justice Department said he redeemed $2,285,039.81 at Walmart and Sam's Club stores in Florida. The court ordered forfeiture of that amount and $275,634.27 in restitution to identified victims. Some victims lived in the Northern District of New York; the full sum is not a New York-only loss. [S53]

Geographical connection: Victims included Northern District of New York residents; redemption occurred in Florida.

North Carolina

No date displayed · Official warning

The official holiday fraud prevention material includes suspicious payment demands and risks associated with gift cards. It is not treated as a criminal case or a prevalence statistic. The state has a verified warning in the register, not a selected individual case. [S54]

Geographical connection: State prevention guide.

North Dakota

No date displayed · Official warning

The attorney general’s guide describes scams in which victims are asked for money or prepaid products following an apparently legitimate request. It includes impersonation variants and false opportunities. It does not allow a gift card loss amount to be isolated for North Dakota. [S55]

Geographical connection: State prevention material.

Ohio

May 22, 2024 · Sentence: four to six years

Ming Xue was sentenced in Coshocton County for participating in a counterfeit card scheme. The attorney general’s release documents the sentence of four to six years. The number of counts is not used as a count of victims or independent incidents. [S56]

Geographical connection: Case in Coshocton County.

Oklahoma

May 23, 2018 · Sentence: 188 months

Leonard Ray Foster was sentenced in a large-scale scheme that converted stolen goods into gift card value through fraudulent returns. It is an example of the link between retail theft and card monetization. No assumption is made that every resale platform used in the flow knowingly participated in the crime. [S57]

Geographical connection: Federal case in Oklahoma.

Oregon

February 20, 2014 · Probation and home detention; restitution paid according to the source

Maria Lana Gilbert was sentenced after using Bureau of Land Management funds for personal goods and gift cards instead of authorized purchases. The mixed loss of $41,276.33 had been repaid in full by sentencing, according to the DOJ. The case does not concern gift cards exclusively. [S58]

Geographical connection: BLM office in Salem and purchases in Oregon.

Pennsylvania

September 9, 2019 · Guilty plea and sentence reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Justice Department charged Chad Douglas Broudy in 2018 over gift-card over-redemption worth approximately $320,582. The Philadelphia Inquirer subsequently reported that he pleaded guilty and received a one-day prison sentence and four months of house arrest in September 2019. It reported $319,739 in restitution, paid before sentencing according to his lawyer. The charging amount and restitution figure are different measures. [S59] [S73]

Geographical connection: Coatesville resident; Eastern District of Pennsylvania case involving eBay.

Rhode Island

January 7, 2026 · Sentence of time served; three years of supervised release

Mattek Scott was sentenced in a retail fraud carried out in at least 11 states, including Rhode Island. The scheme obtained goods and gift cards without actual payment. The approximately $140,000 loss belongs to the merchant in the case and is mixed, not an exclusively card-related total. [S60]

Geographical connection: Rhode Island merchant; multistate conduct.

South Carolina

July 14, 2022 · Police-reported incident; no conviction indicated

The Beaufort County Sheriff reported the case of a Hilton Head woman deceived through a fake Amazon problem and supposed CIA intervention. Reported losses were $30,000 in gift cards and $100,000 in cash. Only the first component is a gift card loss. [S61]

Geographical connection: Victim from Hilton Head Island.

South Dakota

February 29, 2020 · Sentence imposed on February 24, 2020

Kayla Ottmo, a former postal employee, received two years of probation for mail theft that included gift cards. The $315 restitution concerns the property in the case; it is not automatically treated as the value of gift cards alone. The conduct occurred in 2018. [S62]

Geographical connection: Postal activity in South Dakota.

Tennessee

January 22, 2024 · Official warning

In the warning issued after the winter storms, the attorney general described impostors exploiting utility problems and demanding unusual payments, including gift cards. This is not a criminal judgment and does not quantify card-related losses in Tennessee. [S63]

Geographical connection: Warning following winter storms.

Texas

April 4, 2022 · Documented sentences: 60 and 37 months

Jason Tout-Puissant and Syed Ali received sentences of 60 and 37 months, respectively, for an Apple gift card scheme. The case links unauthorized issuance to a store in Southlake. The value of more than $1.5 million described by the DOJ should not be confused with individual restitution. [S64]

Geographical connection: Unauthorized issuance in Southlake; redemptions also in another state.

Utah

March 20, 2023 · Sentences: 21 and 36 months

Chaohui Chen and Wenyi Zheng were sentenced for participating in a scheme that obtained cards from victims of impostors. Each was ordered to pay $217,200 in restitution for the same scheme. Repeating the obligation for two defendants does not turn the loss into $434,400. [S65]

Geographical connection: Federal case in Utah; victims in multiple locations.

Vermont

January 11, 2024 · Annual report / official warning

In its material on scams reported in 2023, the authority also described reward or credit messages that may use gift cards as bait. The overall number of reports about all scams is not used here as a gift card fraud statistic. [S66]

Geographical connection: State prevention report.

Virginia

April 5, 2023 · Documented sentences; Adiam Berhane: ten years

The Caffe Aficionado case in Arlington linked stolen bank card details to American Express gift cards and transactions through the business involved. Adiam Berhane received ten years in prison in March 2023. This is a mixed financial fraud case involving gift cards usable across a payment network. [S67]

Geographical connection: Coffee shop and transactions in Arlington.

Washington

July 8, 2019 · Sentence: five years

Jeffery Douglas Mann was sentenced for leading a network that stole more than $700,000 from Target and its customers. The case describes compromise of gift card numbers without possession of the physical cards. The amount concerns the network’s activity in several western states, not Washington alone. [S68]

Geographical connection: Federal case in Washington; operations in the western United States.

West Virginia

No date displayed · Official warning

The official warnings page describes demands for money to unlock prizes, including requests for gift cards. This source does not establish an individual court case or a statewide fraud rate. The warning label does not mean that actual cases are absent. [S69]

Geographical connection: Official prevention guide.

Wisconsin

November 14, 2022 · Official alert about reports of drained cards

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection warned about drained cards and explained risks from physical compromise and abusive digital balance checking. The source is an alert about a reported phenomenon, not a case with an identified defendant. Under the methodology, it remains in the warnings category. [S70]

Geographical connection: Wisconsin consumer protection alert.

Wyoming

October 25, 2024 · Official warning from the Wyoming Judicial Branch

The Wyoming Judicial Branch warned that impostors were invoking missed jury service and threatening arrest unless residents paid immediately, including with gift cards. Its October 2024 notice said the courts do not demand telephone payments for missed jury service. This is an official statewide warning, not a documented conviction or a measure of gift card fraud incidence. [S71]

Geographical connection: Wyoming Judicial Branch warning addressed to state residents.

Follow the value, check the identity, reconcile the records

The cases brought together here show that a useful analysis of gift card fraud must track three things separately: the legitimacy of the person requesting the transfer, the integrity of the card or account, and the correctness of the commercial process. A convincing message does not prove identity; an intact physical card does not guarantee the balance; an operation displayed as completed does not necessarily confirm actual payment. [S04] [S03] [S60]

For operators, that leaves a practical set of questions. Who can create value? Who can move it? What proves that the payment, recipient and redemption belong together? For consumers, the first question is often simpler: who is asking for the code, and can that identity be checked independently? The answer depends on the mechanism. The map helps readers inspect the evidence behind those distinctions while keeping allegations, verdicts, restitution and public warnings separate.

How this investigation was assembled

Each state has one selected record with an explicit geographical connection. Categories describe the evidence behind that entry: a guilty plea, verdict or sentence; charges or an investigation; or a public warning. They do not rank the states by fraud risk. Sources are primarily official releases and warnings; Pennsylvania's later sentencing outcome is attributed to contemporary reporting by The Philadelphia Inquirer alongside the original Justice Department announcement. Dates identify the cited record, not a claim that all later proceedings have been continuously monitored.

The periods are heterogeneous: some court cases are historical, while others were published in 2026. The atlas does not compare years, infer trends from the number of press releases, or measure underreporting. It is not a comprehensive review of court dockets, appeals, or every update to each case. Case descriptions identify the dated event supported by the cited record.

Individuals are named only where public sources identify defendants or convicted persons; private victims are not identified. The explanations describe mechanisms and control points without operational instructions for exploitation. Source references open the bibliography at the end of the article. The downloadable CSV brings together the map records, chart values, tables and source URLs. The research cutoff is September 17, 2026; source pages may subsequently change.

This is a journalistic article for general information, not legal advice or a legal opinion on a particular transaction, dispute or business. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. For a specific incident, the relevant issuer, consumer-protection authority or an appropriately qualified lawyer can assess the facts and applicable rules.