Alert: New Gift Card Scam Gives Your Gift Money to Thieves

Look carefully at those gift cards that are lining store shelves, especially at the impulse-buy racks toward the checkout stands.

Someone has been tampering with them in Santa Cruz, in a new scheme to bilk cash from unsuspecting buyers.

Here's how it works, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office:

Someone buys a gift card and has the clerk put a small amount, such as $5 or $10 on it. Meanwhile, the person steals an armload of other blank cards.

Once home, the person copies the scanner code of the card that was purchased, duplicates it and attaches it to the stolen cards, which is replaced on the store shelves.

Then, when someone buys a card and puts money on it, the money goes to the card the thief has opened up, instead of to the person who is supposed to get the gift.

It's happened three times in Santa Cruz at Safeway stores, where thieves doctored American Express gift cards, according to sheriff's deputy April Skalland.

The department is checking fraudulent cards for fingerprints and DNA, but for now, Skalland suggests that people only buy gift cards that are in locked containers.

If you buy an open card, check the video to see what the fake cards may look like.