Google may have accidentally approved an ad for a Target gift card scam

Most of us check our gift card balances online (because who actually keeps those little paper receipts showing us how much money we have left on them?), making this apparent oversight by Google all that much worse. It appears that Google inadvertently approved a prominent ad for a phony Target gift card balance checker that’s meant to steal your funds.

The slip-up was discovered on Saturday – when searching Google for “Target gift card balance” the very first result is an ad, titled “Check Gift Card Balance – Target” except the site isn’t Target’s — it’s actually a site called “bristolhirevan” (a van rental company in the UK). The ad’s description says it will let you check your gift card balance “immediately,” and that it also offers “all van sizes to fit your needs” — how can you get more legitimate than that?

While the name of the site doesn’t sound convincing at all, its interface looked like the real thing. The actual Target site requires you to sign in to check your gift card balance, this fake site doesn’t. Besides that, the only thing that was off about the webpage is the URL, which shows the “bristolhirevan.com” domain and the fact that every single link on the page leads to the real Target homepage. If you were really in a rush (and were somehow distracted enough to ignore the mention of vans), you just might accidentally enter your gift card’s number and security code here, resulting in your gift cards value being stolen.

Gift card scams appear to be on the rise. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that victims of gift card scams lost a total of $148 million within the first nine months of 2021 — more than all of 2020. Target gift cards are apparently scammers’ cards of choice, as FTC data shows people were scammed out of $35 million worth of Target gift cards last year, more than double the amount of any other gift card brand.

As pointed out by the FTC, gift card scams often take place over the phone, with the scammer pretending to be an employee of a company like Google or Amazon (or even someone from a federal agency) who demands the victim make a payment in the form of a gift card. However, fake balance checker sites like these often hide in plain sight — apparently even as ads promoted on Google.

As a reminder, ALWAYS check and verify the URL you are visiting before entering any personal, credit card or gift card information. Fortunately, this fake ad seems to have been removed but there’s no telling how many people might have been scammed while it was online.

Thanks again to the Verge for this heads-up.