Yolanda Bauza says when a group of parents found out their children’s first-grade teacher was celebrating a birthday in September, they each pitched in to make it extra special.
“They all agreed we needed to give her something,” she said. “She’s so great. The kids love her. They gush about her all the time.”
So in September, the class surprised the teacher with a customized book showcasing special messages from each of the students and a $375 gift card Yolanda says she purchased at a pharmacy.
“It just seemed more elegant, you know,” she said about why they decided to buy a gift card instead of giving the teacher cash. “And I wanted it to be a VISA gift card just because she could use it anywhere.”
The receipt she provided NBC 6 shows the card was purchased on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m.
Yolanda says they gave it to the teacher the following day. But by the time the teacher went to use it on Saturday, she told Yolanda the money was gone.
“It was awful,” Yolanda said. “She sent me a text and she said that she went online … and she saw where it was used.”
“Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common scam,” said John Breyault of the National Consumers League.
Breyault explains how the scam works: fraudsters go to a retail store and record the numbers off the back of gift cards.
“They then take that number back and load it into software that will actually ping the servers to find out how much money has been loaded onto these cards,” he said….
