WADSWORTH, Ohio — What should have been a really nice Father’s Day for a man in Wadsworth turned into more headaches than happiness.
“I’ve had better Father’s Days to be honest with you,” said Jef Blevins, 51. He saw his three sons pool their money together on their minimum-wage type jobs to get him a $200 Visa Debit gift card for Father’s Day. They bought it from the Target store in Wadsworth.
“It’s just frustrating when someone takes advantage of your children,” said Blevins. “So, that’s the part that burns my rear end like a 3-foot flame.”
He said the packaging on the outside of the card looked fine but when he opened it up, it looked very unusual. “There was this false back (on the card),” said Blevins while showing us the card. “You look and you can still some off the glue, the adhesive that they had on that.”
We could see a little flap of paper with a bar code, and underneath that, there was a different code. He said he tried to activate either one but had no luck. “I’m frustrated because those cards are out in the open. Anybody can tamper with them,” said Blevins.
News 5 Investigators went to the store and saw, like many stores’ gift card displays, they are not under lock and key. We wanted to ask questions, but the manager told us to contact corporate offices.
Blevins said they told him that, too, when he wanted his sons’ money back. “Corporate told me that it was the local store’s issue and the local store said it was a corporate policy that they couldn’t do a refund,” said Blevins.
“And you are in the middle?” we asked.
“Yep,” he replied.
So, what do you do as a consumer when you’re hearing from both sides and feeling a bit squeezed? Well, what we did was go to the Cleveland Better Business Bureau to find out more about problematic gift cards.
“It certainly is something you need to be concerned about,” said Ericka Dilworth, who is the Director of Operations at the Cleveland BBB. She said, in general, tampering with gift cards is all too common, either in a store or by stealing them, like a case a couple of years ago. “Where (thieves) took a whole section of and then returned them back to the store,” Dilworth told us.
The National Conference of State Legislatures reported just last year this kind of gift card draining racked up $210 million in consumer losses.
Dilworth said if you notice your card has been tampered with, many times it will be up to each store’s policy on refunds, but you should make sure to contact the store, the gift card company, and the corporate offices quickly. “Sometimes if it’s quick and the tampering has just happened or the money has just been taken, sometimes they can reverse that,” said Dilworth.
Blevins told us he’s done all of that, and it’s frustrating. “If you buy a box of baby diapers and find a box of pretzels when you get home, they’re going to do something about it. So, why not do it with the purchase of these gift cards?” Blevins questioned.
News 5 Investigators contacted Target’s corporate headquarters and we’ve been told it’s looking into Blevins’ gift card issue.
