Technology
6 sneaky gift card scams to watch out for this holiday season
With the holiday season just around the corner, many of us are gearing up to spread some cheer with gift cards.
However, it’s important to remember that these convenient gifts are also a favorite target for scammers. We’re going to break down six sneaky gift card tricks that could leave you out of pocket during this time of year.
Don’t worry, though. We’ve got your back with solid tips on how to outsmart these scammers and keep your hard-earned cash safe.
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Image of a holiday gift card (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
1. Display rack gift card trick
One of the latest gift card tricks involves tampering with the gift cards on the display racks at retail stores. Scammers will record the activation code on the card or place a custom barcode sticker over the real barcode, which allows them to secretly load the cash onto their own card immediately after you purchase the gift card. This means that when you or your recipient try to use the gift card, it will be empty or invalid.
How to avoid this scam
Check the packaging of the gift card before buying it. Look for signs of tampering, such as the wrapping being torn or resealed or stickers placed over the barcode or card number. Also, choose a card from the back of the rack, as scammers often place their fraudulent cards at the front of the display.
Fake scratch-off label on top of already scratched-off gift card label (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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2. Impersonation gift card trick
Another common gift card trick scammers use involves impersonating someone you know or trust, such as a family member, a romantic interest, a company or the government. Scammers will contact you by phone, text, email or social media and create a fake story or emergency that requires you to send them money urgently.
They will ask you to buy a gift card or multiple gift cards and then send them a photo of the card or the numbers on the back of the card. Once they have the gift card information, they will disappear with your money and cut off contact.
How to avoid this scam
Never send money or gift cards to anyone you don’t know personally or haven’t met in person. If someone claims to be someone you know or trust, verify their identity by contacting them directly through a different channel.
Don’t trust caller ID, as scammers can spoof phone numbers. Don’t be pressured by threats or promises, as scammers use emotional manipulation to get you to act quickly and without thinking. And remember, no legitimate company or government agency will ever ask you to pay them with a gift card.
A person holding a gift card (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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3. Resale gift card trick
Another gift card trick involves buying or selling gift cards on online platforms, such as websites, apps or social media groups. Scammers will offer to sell you gift cards at a discounted price or buy your unwanted gift cards for cash.
However, they will either send you a fake or empty gift card or take your gift card information and money without sending you anything in return. They may also use stolen credit cards or hacked accounts to buy or sell gift cards, which can put you at risk of fraud or identity theft.
How to avoid this scam
Only buy or sell gift cards from reputable sources, such as official retailers, authorized resellers or trusted friends and family. Avoid buying or selling gift cards from strangers online, especially if they offer a deal that sounds too good to be true.
Don’t share your gift card information or personal details with anyone you don’t know or trust. And use a secure payment method that offers protection, such as a credit card or PayPal, instead of a gift card, wire transfer or cash.
A person giving a gift card as a present (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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4. Phishing gift card trick
A very popular gift card trick this holiday season involves phishing, which is a type of online fraud that tries to trick you into revealing your personal or financial information. Scammers will send you an email, text or pop-up message that looks like it comes from a legitimate company, such as a retailer, bank or tech support service.
They will claim that there is a problem with your account, your order, your device or your security and that you need to verify your identity, update your information or fix an issue. They will then ask you to click on a link, open an attachment or call a number and then request that you pay them with a gift card or provide them with your gift card information.
How to avoid this scam
Never click on links, open attachments or call numbers from unsolicited messages, as they may lead to fake or malicious websites or software. Don’t provide any personal or financial information, such as your passwords, PINs, account numbers or gift card numbers, to anyone who contacts you unexpectedly.
Don’t trust messages that create a sense of urgency, pressure or fear, as they are designed to make you act without thinking. If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of a message, contact the company directly using a verified website, phone number or email address.
Using antivirus protection will help to protect you against scammers and hackers who try to steal your money and personal information using gift card tricks, especially through phishing. The best way to protect yourself from clicking on any malicious links, fake websites, phishing emails and text messages is to have strong antivirus protection installed and actively running on all your devices. It’s the best to help stop and alert you of any malware in your system and ultimately protect you from being hacked.
Get my picks for the best 2024 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.
A person purchasing a gift card online (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
5. Loyalty program gift card trick
This gift card trick involves loyalty programs, which are rewards programs that offer you points, discounts or freebies for being a loyal customer. Scammers will pretend to be representatives of a loyalty program that you are a member of or that you are eligible to join.
They will tell you that you have won a prize, sweepstakes or a promotion and that you need to pay a fee, a tax or a shipping cost to claim it. They will then ask you to pay them with a gift card or provide them with your gift card information.
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How to avoid this scam
Be wary of any unsolicited offers or notifications that claim that you have won something, especially if you don’t remember entering or signing up for anything. Don’t pay any money or fees to receive a prize, as legitimate loyalty programs will never ask you to do that. Don’t provide any personal or financial information, such as your passwords, account numbers or gift card numbers, to anyone who contacts you unexpectedly.
Don’t trust messages that create a sense of excitement, curiosity or greed, as they are designed to make you act impulsively. If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of a message, contact the loyalty program directly using a verified website, phone number or email address.
A person purchasing a gift card online (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
6. Fake balance checker scam
In this scam, fraudsters set up fake websites or phone services that claim to check the balance of your gift cards. Victims are lured into providing their gift card numbers and PINs under the guise of verifying their balance. Once the information is entered, scammers can drain the funds from the card almost immediately.
How to avoid this scam
To avoid this scam, always use official websites or apps from reputable retailers to check your gift card balance. Be wary of unsolicited calls or messages asking for your gift card information, especially if they claim to be from a legitimate company. It is important never to enter your gift card details on unfamiliar websites.
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How to safely give and receive gift cards
- Buy gift cards online instead of physical cards directly from the store, not from third parties. You can also use these favorite sites and apps that will reward you with a percentage back on all gift card purchases.
- Avoid gift card racks at retail stores like the grocery store. If you still want to buy one at the store, dig back into the pile without taking the first ones off the rack. Inspect them like a detective before you buy them to make sure they are unaltered.
- Register the gift card directly with the retailer if offered, which also helps track the card balance.
- Never engage in any gift card transactions from callers making unusual claims. It is likely a scam.
- Avoid buying gift cards from online auction sites like eBay.
- Never provide personal financial information beyond a method of payment to anyone offering gift cards in-store or online.
- Use strong antivirus protection. Strong antivirus software is a must-have to protect against scammers and hackers who try to steal your money and personal information using gift card tricks, especially through phishing. The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2024 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.
I’ve been scammed! What to do next?
Below are some next steps if you find you or your loved one is a victim of identity theft as a result of a gift card trick by scammers or hackers.
1. If you can regain control of your accounts, change your passwords and inform the account provider.
2. Look through bank statements and checking account transactions to see where outlier activity started.
3. Use an identity theft protection service: Identity theft companies can monitor personal information like your Social Security number, phone number and email address and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account. They can also assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals. Some of the best parts of using an identity theft protection service include identity theft insurance to cover losses and legal fees and a white-glove fraud resolution team where a U.S.-based case manager helps you recover any losses. See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft.
4. Report any breaches to official government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the gift card company.
5. Get the professional advice of a lawyer before speaking to law enforcement, especially when you are dealing with criminal identity theft and if being a victim of criminal identity theft leaves you unable to secure employment or housing.
6. Alert all three major credit bureaus and possibly place a fraud alert on your credit report.
7. Run your own background check or request a copy of one if that is how you discovered your information has been used by a criminal.
If you are a victim of identity theft because of a gift card scam, the most important thing to do is to take immediate action to mitigate the damage and prevent further harm.
Kurt’s key takeaways
As we head into the holiday season, it’s important to keep an eye out for these six gift card scams we’ve talked about. If something feels off or sounds too good to be true, trust your gut and don’t be afraid to ask questions or walk away. Gift cards are meant to bring joy, not stress, so keep these tips in mind as you shop and share this season.
Have you ever fallen victim to a gift card scam? If so, how did it happen, and what did you do? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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Copyright 2024 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Anthropic wants to expand Claude’s AI agent capabilities and take advantage of the growing hype around Claude Code — and it’s doing it with a brand-new feature released Monday, dubbed “Claude Cowork.”
“Cowork can take on many of the same tasks that Claude Code can handle, but in a more approachable form for non-coding tasks,” Anthropic wrote in a blog post. The company is releasing it as a “research preview” so the team can learn more about how people use it and continue building accordingly. So far, Cowork is only available via Claude’s macOS app, and only for subscribers of Anthropic’s power-user tier, Claude Max, which costs $100 to $200 per month depending on usage.
Here’s how Claude Cowork works: A user gives Claude access to a folder on their computer, allowing the chatbot to read, edit, or create files. (Examples Anthropic gave included the ability fo “re-organize your downloads by sorting and renaming each file, create a new spreadsheet with a list of expenses from a pile of screenshots, or produce a first draft of a report from your scattered notes.”) Claude will provide regular updates on what it’s working on, and users can also use existing connectors to link it to external info (like Asana, Notion, PayPal, and other supported partners) or link it to Claude in Chrome for browser-related tasks.
“You don’t need to keep manually providing context or converting Claude’s outputs into the right format,” Anthropic wrote. “Nor do you have to wait for Claude to finish before offering further ideas or feedback: you can queue up tasks and let Claude work through them in parallel. It feels much less like a back-and-forth and much more like leaving messages for a coworker.”
The new feature is part of Anthropic’s (and its competitors’) bid to provide the most actually useful AI agents, both for consumers and enterprise. AI agents have come a long way from their humble beginnings as mostly-theoretically-useful tools, but there’s still much more development needed before you’ll see your non-tech-industry friends using them to complete everyday tasks.
Anthropic’s “Skills for Claude,” announced in October, was a partial precursor to Cowork. Starting in October, Claude could improve at personalized tasks and jobs, by way of “folders that include instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude can load when needed to make it smarter at specific work tasks — from working with Excel [to] following your organization’s brand guidelines,” per a release at the time. People could also build their own Skills for Claude relative to their specific jobs and tasks they needed to be completed.
As part of the announcement, Anthropic warned about the potential dangers of using Cowork and other AI agent tools, namely the fact that if instructions aren’t clear, Claude does have the ability to delete local files and take other “potentially destructive actions” — and that with prompt injection attacks, there are a range of potential safety concerns. Prompt injection attacks often involve bad actors hiding malicious text in a website that the model is referencing, which instructs the model to bypass its safeguards and do something harmful, such as hand over personal data. “Agent safety — that is, the task of securing Claude’s real-world actions — is still an active area of development in the industry,” Anthropic wrote.
Claude Max subscribers try out the new feature by clicking on “Cowork” in the sidebar of the macOS app. Other users can join the waitlist.
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Touch something hot, and your hand snaps back before you even think. That split second matters.
Sensory nerves in your skin send a rapid signal to your spinal cord, which triggers your muscles right away. Your brain catches up later. Most robots cannot do this. When a humanoid robot touches something harmful, sensor data usually travels to a central processor, waits for analysis and then sends instructions back to the motors. Even tiny delays can lead to broken parts or dangerous interactions.
As robots move into homes, hospitals and workplaces, that lag becomes a real problem.
A robotic skin designed to mimic the human nervous system
Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and collaborating universities are tackling this challenge with a neuromorphic robotic e-skin, also known as NRE-skin. Instead of acting like a simple pressure pad, this skin works more like a human nervous system. Traditional robot skins can tell when they are touched. They cannot tell whether that touch is harmful. The new e-skin can do both. That difference changes everything.
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A humanoid robot equipped with neuromorphic e-skin reacts instantly to harmful touch, mimicking the human nervous system to prevent damage and improve safety. (Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images)
How the neuromorphic e-skin works
The e-skin is built in four layers that mirror how human skin and nerves function. The top layer acts as a protective outer covering, similar to the epidermis. Beneath it sit sensors and circuits that behave like sensory nerves. Even when nothing touches the robot, the skin sends a small electrical pulse to the robot every 75 to 150 seconds. This signal acts like a status check that says everything is fine. When the skin is damaged, that pulse stops. The robot immediately knows where it was injured and alerts its owner. Touch creates another signal. Normal contact sends neural-like spikes to the robot’s central processor for interpretation. However, extreme pressure triggers something different.
How robots detect pain and trigger instant reflexes
If force exceeds a preset threshold, the skin generates a high-voltage spike that goes straight to the motors. This bypasses the central processor entirely. The result is a reflex. The robot can pull its arm away instantly, much like a human does after touching a hot surface. The pain signal only appears when the contact is truly dangerous, which helps prevent overreaction. This local reflex system reduces damage, improves safety and makes interactions feel more natural.
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Scientists developed a robotic skin that can detect pain and trigger reflexes without waiting for a central processor to respond. (Han Suyuan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
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The design includes another clever feature. The e-skin is made from magnetic patches that fit together like building blocks. If part of the skin gets damaged, an owner can remove the affected patch and snap in a new one within seconds. There is no need to replace the entire surface. That modular approach saves time, lowers costs and keeps robots in service longer.
Why pain-sensing skin matters for real-world robots
Future service robots will need to work close to people. They will assist patients, help older adults and operate safely in crowded spaces. A sense of touch that includes pain and injury detection makes robots more aware and more trustworthy. It also reduces the risk of accidents caused by delayed reactions or sensor overload. The research team says their neural-inspired design improves robotic touch, safety and intuitive human-robot interaction. It is a key step toward robots that behave less like machines and more like responsive partners.
What this technology means for the future of robots
The next challenge is sensitivity. The researchers want the skin to recognize multiple touches at the same time without confusion. If successful, robots could handle complex physical tasks while staying alert to danger across their entire surface. That brings humanoid robots one step closer to acting on instinct.
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A new e-skin design allows robots to pull away from dangerous contact in milliseconds, reducing the risk of injury or mechanical failure. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Robots that can feel pain may sound unsettling at first. In reality, it is about protection, speed and safety. By copying how the human nervous system works, scientists are giving robots faster reflexes and better judgment in the physical world. As robots become part of daily life, those instincts could make all the difference.
Would you feel more comfortable around a robot if it could sense pain and react instantly, or does that idea raise new concerns for you? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Billy Woods has one of the highest batting averages in the game. Between his solo records like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the man has multiple stone-cold classics under his belt. And, while no one would ever claim that Woods’ albums were light-hearted fare (these are not party records), Golliwog represents his darkest to date.
This is not your typical horrorcore record. Others, like Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse, reach for slasher aesthetics and shock tactics. But what Billy Woods has crafted is more A24 than Blumhouse.
Sure, the first track is called “Jumpscare,” and it opens with the sound of a film reel spinning up, followed by a creepy music box and the line: “Ragdoll playing dead. Rabid dog in the yard, car won’t start, it’s bees in your head.” It’s setting you up for the typical horror flick gimmickry. But by the end, it’s psychological torture. A cacophony of voices forms a bed for unidentifiable screeching noises, and Woods drops what feels like a mission statement:
“The English language is violence, I hotwired it. I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialed in.”
Throughout the record, Woods turns to his producers to craft not cheap scares, but tension, to make the listener feel uneasy. “Waterproof Mascara” turns a woman’s sobs into a rhythmic motif. On “Pitchforks & Halos” Kenny Segal conjures the aural equivalent of a POV shot of a serial killer. And “All These Worlds are Yours” produced by DJ Haram has more in common with the early industrial of Throbbing Gristle than it does even some of the other tracks on the record, like “Golgotha” which pairs boombap drums with New Orleans funeral horns.
That dense, at times scattered production is paired with lines that juxtapose the real-world horrors of oppression and colonialism, with scenes that feel taken straight from Bring Her Back: “Trapped a housefly in an upside-down pint glass and waited for it to die.” And later, Woods seamlessly transitions from boasting to warning people about turning their backs on the genocide in Gaza on “Corinthians”:
If you never came back from the dead you can’t tell me shit
Twelve billion USD hovering over the Gaza Strip
You don’t wanna know what it cost to live
What it cost to hide behind eyelids
When your back turnt, secret cannibals lick they lips
The record features some of Woods’ deftest lyricism, balancing confrontation with philosophy, horror with emotion. Billy Woods’ Golliwog is available on Bandcamp and on most major streaming services, including Apple Music, Qobuz, Deezer, YouTube Music, and Spotify.
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