Fraud? Anything they can do?

marliepanda

Hello. My friend recently sold a gift voucher on eBay and stupidly photographed the code. It has now been used online by someone who saw the code.

I think it's just her stupidity, but she was wondering if it is fraud? (Not sure how) and can anything be done. It is a voucher for a high street store, but was used online.

Thanks!

techspec

Its a difficult one - as in most cases your not allowed to sell these.
In fact, many retailers see them, take the code and then cancel them.

Would be hard to prove and get anyone one interested - as it was put out there on the net for millions to see. Hard to prove they 'stole it'.

You could try Action Fraud:-

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

How much was it for?

marliepanda

The card was £50 and was being sold for £40.

She was saying as it just have been used online (due to times and the fact she physically has it) would they be able to trace who used it or whatever.

I think she's just kicking herself to be honest. I don't know the companies rules on selling vouchers (or ebays)

cootuk

It's fraud as they didn't have ownership of the voucher, but, unless you can get the retailer to divulge the buyer (maybe through reporting it to the police), then there's not much you can do.
If high value then you might get some action, if only a few pounds then it would be very low priority.

techspec

How do you know its been used? Online balance check?

You could just tell retailer you voucher doesn't work and take it from there.

RFW

marliepanda wrote: »

would they be able to trace who used it or whatever.

It depends how it was used. If someone had something delivered it should be easy, they may have a genuine name and would certainly have some address, if they collected in store there may still be CCTV. Whether you can get the store or the police to investigate is another matter. Personally I'd go for the store, as they may want to tighten up their security for issuing cards/vouchers.
I'm not sure the police would be too interested although it is still a crime and they would have to investigate to some extent. I doubt it would get high up on their list of priorities though.

marliepanda

Well I spotted the mistake, told her, and then tried to use it and it said card was invalid

onetwothree123

You read in here every week about the headaches people encounter selling off coupons and vouchers issues ,it was daft to take a pic, as millions could have used it, even people not registered at ebay could have seen it, and the police would not be interested.

As for fraud, the woman who tried to sell it would be the one doing that inadvertently so, with the retailer! She is the one who tried to punt "their property", on the smallprint of those items it always states not for resale or transfer, it is against the retailers rules for the person with the coupons to sell it online, if that was issued to someone and another person uses it. As per techspecs already said all this.

I don't know if retailers have online keyword spamming but they probably stopped it.

George_Michael

onetwothree123 wrote: »

As for fraud, the woman who tried to sell it would be the one doing that inadvertently so, with the retailer! She is the one who tried to punt "their property", on the smallprint of those items it always states not for resale or transfer, it is against the retailers rules for the person with the coupons to sell it online

The OP stated that it was a gift voucher and as these are generally purchased with the intention of giving them to another person, why would such a voucher state that they can't be transferred to another person?

onetwothree123

Gift vouchers are classed as cash by retailers and they should be treated as such and the retailers accept no responsibility for lost damaged or stolen ones. Using an e gift voucher is untraceable. If it was a till spit or credit note it was issued to a specific person and that has all the smallprint on it about not being used by someone else and cannot be resold and remains the property of the store in question, and they can cancel them if they deem rules using it were broken etc.

The op didnt say if it was store coupons for money off, an e gift voucher, it cant have been a giftcard that was sold, which had to be physically swiped had a pin ,and all the numbers on the front , and gift vouchers have barcodes on the back so it was strange how someone got "the code" from the photo?

marliepanda

This voucher was useable both In store and online.

It was 2 letters and 6 numbers, that was all that was needed to use it online. She put up a picture of both from and back (and put the code in the auction description, thinking it would lend credence to her auction) I can link to the auction as proof if needed haha.

To the person who said it would need to be physically swiped, I don't have lots of experience with gift cards but marks and spencer ones have a bar code AND a numerical code. You can use either, half the time the bar codes don't scan so you type in the number. That's my only experience but that can be used both online and in store.

Anyway, quite unbelievably the person who used them either had actually messaged her telling her the mistake saying they were going to use them to stop others and had sent her a best offer (she ignored the best offers as she thought shed lost the vouchers) and I guess the initial message was lost in the eBay 'you're listing is confirmed' messages. The persons offer was acceptable to my friend and she accepted it. So she's pretty lucky, but I've told her she's very lucky someone honest did that.