If you’re like most people, you probably have a few gift cards lying around the house (check your junk drawer) that you received last Christmas, or perhaps on your birthday. Maybe it was a $100 gift card and you recall only purchasing something for around $60. Realizing that you may still have a balance available, the natural instinct is to look up just how big that balance might be. The right thing to do is to simply call the number on the back of the card, or visit the website that is listed on the back of the card to check your balance. But for some reason, not everyone does this. Some people will actually search Google or other search engines to look for websites that offer a free gift card balance checking tool.
While there may be some legitimate gift card balance checking websites in the search results, keep in mind that there may also be some not so legitimate websites in the search results, especially if you click on an ad. It’s very easy for a scammer to set up a fake website where you can upload all of your gift card details, thus easily providing the scammer with everything they need to claim your gift card balance. It’s kind of like you just mailed them a bunch of cash.
If for some reason you have to go through a random gift card balance checker website, do some research on the company before clicking through to their website link. But do check the back of your gift card first and see if the instructions for balance checking are made available. Keep in mind, that gift card balances usually do expire after a certain amount of time, so if you do have old gift cards lying around, you may want to get busy checking those balances.
