 The scammers are out here and they've duped people out of more than one billion dollars using Walmart gift cards and other methods. And the scams are still happening. You can become a victim too, even if you never even speak to a scammer. Watch till the end for the latest scam and how to spot it. So here's how a classic Walmart gift card laundering scheme goes down. A person gets a call or email claiming there's an emergency, that a loved one got arrested and needs bail, or that they owe the IRS money. Maybe this has happened to you or someone you know. Okay, then the scammer tells them they have to buy a bunch of money on Walmart gift cards and take a photo of the numbers on the back of the card and send it to them if they want to rectify whatever the made up issue is. The scammer then resells those gift card numbers to a middleman. Okay, and then that middleman sends a runner who immediately loads the gift card numbers into a mobile app and then heads to a Walmart self-checkout kiosk where they buy more gift cards. Say for Google Play or Apple iTunes. This launders the money and prevents the victim from getting a refund. This then allows the runner to send the gift card numbers back to the middleman who then resells them on online marketplaces, often before the victim even realizes what's happened. Now Walmart, America's largest retailer, yep, it has facilitated mass fraud like this for a long time. For roughly a decade, they've resisted tougher enforcement, broken promises to regulators, and skimped out on employee training to call this kind of stuff out. For example, in 2018, after two state attorneys general investigated Walmart for potentially benefiting from gift card fraud, the company promised to crack down. Specifically, they said they'd stop or restrict the use of its gift cards to buy other gift cards, a fave ploy of many a Walmart scammer. In actuality, the company let the practice continue for almost four years after it knew that millions were being laundered from its stores. But guess what? Walmart has financial incentive to avoid cracking down. The company earned money each time their card was used and earned a fee any time another brand of card was bought. And by the way, their financial services business generates hundreds of millions in profits every year. Despite the aforementioned investigation by state attorneys general and an FTC lawsuit in 2022 basically calling Walmart out, the company has only grudgingly taken steps to fight fraud. And while jeragging its feet to fight said fraud, Walmart has been broadening its financial offerings. Now Walmart insists has taken strong steps to fight fraud. The company says its push into financial services has saved customers without traditional bank accounts $6 billion in fees. Walmart also says it's blocked more than $700 million in suspicious money transfers and refunded $4 million to victims of gift card fraud. But in response to the FTC lawsuit, which Walmart is seeking to dismiss, the company said that it has no responsibility to protect against a criminal conduct and that though fraud is deeply unfortunate, such schemes are reasonably avoidable by consumers. Look, you may be thinking this too. Like this kind of thing simply would never happen to me because I would never fall for a phone scam. But you could become a victim of fraud even if you never pick up the phone. The latest scheme is called balance theft or card draining. And it happens when a scammer takes a Walmart gift card and brings it to a private spot like a bathroom stall. The scammer will peel off the protective tape covering the pin, take a picture of it and the serial number, then reapply security tape and place the card back on display. As soon as the customer picks one up, activates it and then loads money into it, the scammer spends the money. When people go to use the card, they discover it has a balance of zero. Had to relink in bio to find out how Walmart has facilitated fraud and other financial chicanery.