Sean Pyles

And also, it's the beginning of the year, so we are all due for a refresher about how to stay safe in this precarious, scammy world we all live in.

Oh, Elizabeth, what happened?

I need to hear all the details.

I'm here for you.

Did it look sketchy or old or what was weird to you about it?

Yeah.

A little more legit.

That is such a classic move of scammers is they will take something like an email address from a company or in your case, a website and have one letter or a number off.

So if you're not looking super closely or if you're in the holiday spirit and your guard is down, like you said, Elizabeth, you just put in your information and then they have access to, in your case, your gift card balance.

It's so frustrating.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

I'm so sorry that you felt embarrassed about this too.

That's a really common feeling that people have when they are scammed.

Like it's your fault.

When in fact, it's the scammer's fault for making a website that is designed to trick you.

So please don't beat yourself up too much over that.

Yeah, it is nice that the gift card company was able to reimburse you.

I would say that they are partially responsible for seeing whether there are any websites that look a lot like theirs out in the space, because this must happen all the time.

And I'm sure they're well aware of this website.