alt Hacker NewsThe author is an expert in the field of payments. What you call "being contrarian" is better called "speaking the truth".
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Author works in payments industry which issues and accepts gift cards, benefits from the lack of consumer protections, and incidentally doesn’t make any revenue on cash payments.
Is he an expert in the field of old people being scammed out of lots of money? Telling non tech-savvy people that it's ok to listen to the nice man on the phone and send him a lot of gift cards?
I am also an expert in the field of payments. The only thing that makes gift cards stand out from other transaction media is there are many fewer guardrails around them money movement wise.
I'd pretty much back up AARP on this one. Asking for payment by gift card should in the majority of cases put one on guard.
I would call it "splitting hairs," which experts tend to do.
The practical reality is acknowledged at the end of the post.
Even if, technically speaking, using gift cards as a payments instrument is not a scam 100% of the time, anyone but a non-expert should behave as if it's 100%.