‘They told me there was nothing that could be done,’ fumes Walmart shopper after losing $550 in store 2,000 miles away

A WALMART shopper has vowed never to use the big box retailer’s gift cards ever again after losing a large chunk of money.

Samantha Vandzura claimed she lost nearly $550 in multiple Walmart gift cards that were given to her for Christmas.

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The shopper, from Montreal, Canada, was checking out baby products at her local store when a cashier told her the gift cards didn’t have enough money on them for her to pay.

One card had a balance of $0 while the other only had $4.

She said she approached customer service and they told her that the cards had been used within the past two days in Ontario, Canada.

However, Vandzura was never in Ontario.

Instead, she was outside of the country vacationing in sunny Florida.

“They told me that there was nothing that could be done,” she told CBC.

When Vandzura’s local Walmart customer service was no help, she dialed Walmart Canada’s customer service line.

“They basically just told me their policy is not to refund anything when it comes to gift cards,” she said, still with no luck.

CBC decided to reach out to the big box retailer on behalf of the woman after she received little to no information.

Diane Medeiros, a spokesperson for Walmart said that Vandzura’s situation was “unusual.”

“Walmart Canada will look at every instance on a case-by-case basis, and work with our customer to investigate any potential fraud and assist where possible,” Medeiros said.

After CBC got in contact with Walmart, Vandzura was reissued the $550 she lost through the gift cards.

However, she still plans to never use Walmart gift cards again.

Gift card fraud is unfortunately continuously growing, according to McAfee, The U.S. Sun previously reported.

“According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), they received nearly 50,000 reports of gift card fraud in 2022,” McAfee explained.

“Those losses racked up more than $250 million.”

McAfee listed several retailers that were affected by gift card fraud, and Walmart, of course, was one of them.

If you believe you’re a victim of gift card fraud, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission.

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https://www.the-sun.com/news/9955608/walmart-gift-card-fraud-montreal-canada/