>If I buy gift cards in New York, there's zero reason someone in Bangalore, India should immediately be able to redeem those gift cards.
According to the article, that is not what happens; instead, the gift cards are redeemed in the US:
'Once the scammers obtain gift card numbers from a victim, they transfer them to a group of US-based “runners,”'
The runners described above would probably have some kind of presence in most major US cities, and they could just pick a runner in the nearest major city to the victim without raising any location-based red flags. Note that neither Safeway, nor Target have retail stores in Bangalore (or anywhere else in India), only offices.
According to the article, that is not what happens; instead, the gift cards are redeemed in the US: 'Once the scammers obtain gift card numbers from a victim, they transfer them to a group of US-based “runners,”'
The runners described above would probably have some kind of presence in most major US cities, and they could just pick a runner in the nearest major city to the victim without raising any location-based red flags. Note that neither Safeway, nor Target have retail stores in Bangalore (or anywhere else in India), only offices.