Beaverton Man Steals Thousands from Stores by Cloning Gift Cards
Emily E. Smith at the Oregonian reports Sealtiel Chacon Zepeda was standing at a Fred Meyer sales register spending a gift card when curiosity struck. After spending 20 hours on the Internet researching how gift cards work, Zepeda purchased a magnetic card reader online, began stealing blank gift cards, on display for purchase, from Fred Meyer and scanning them with his reader. He would then return some of the scanned cards to the store and wait for a computer program to alert him when the cards were activated and loaded with money. Using a magnetic card writer, Zepeda then rewrote one of the leftover stolen gift card’s magnetic strip with the activated card’s information, thus creating a cloned card.
