SEATTLE—Hackers are stealing money from consumers’ payment cards via Starbucks gift cards.
The clever crooks take the money from cards linked to the gift card, and they don’t even have to know the account number of the card they are hacking, reported consumer advocate Bob Sullivan on his website.
Sullivan explained that criminals are taking advantage of the Starbucks gift card auto-reload function, often stealing hundreds of dollars from a card in minutes by moving money from the payment card to the gift card’s stored value—then taking the cash.
Essentially, any criminal who obtains username and password credentials to Starbucks.com can drain a consumer’s stored value, and attack their linked credit card, Sullivan explained.
Consumers have complaining about similar gift card hacks in numerous online forums.