I got my son a Home Depot gift card for Christmas and mailed it to him along with his Christmas card. He called me about a month after Christmas saying the card had already been redeemed. I am VERY careful about noticing whether the packaging had been tampered with and my recollection was this card’s packaging was pristine. They must have some technology that is able to scan or read through material or slide under the packaging to read whatever needs to be read for redemption.
I do electronic delivery for gift cards for just about anyone unless I can hand deliver.
RE: He called me about a month after Christmas saying the card had already been redeemed.
“Stolen gift card codes
Scammers obtain gift card numbers and PINs by copying them from cards in stores. Some cards have a silver strip covering the PIN, which criminals remove to copy the card details. Afterward, they replace the strip with a similar-looking sticker and wait for trusting customers to buy them.
The scammer then tracks the card online to see when it’s activated. Once someone purchases the card — whether it’s a card with a set limit or one where the purchaser determines the amount — the fraudster will hurry to spend those funds before the purchaser can.”
In this case they swapped them with others, sounds like they were tampered with (per article) but we can probably presume that they are sophisticated enough to be able to reproduce the packaging perfectly.