A San Diego commercial flooring contractor is sharing how he lost $4,000 in a gift card scam, saying he wishes merchants did more to help protect customers from fraud as gift card scam losses continue to rise nationwide. After losing thousands to a gift card scam, Jaime “Jay” Bernal struggles to recover. The ruse and push to buy gift cards Jay Bernal said someone posing as a federal agent convinced him that criminals had hacked his computer and that his bank account was about to be frozen as the hackers used it for illegal transactions. The caller offered to move Bernal’s money into a secure Federal Reserve account while an investigation was underway. Bernal said he agreed because he needed the money to operate his business. “There were little red flags going out in my head, but then the allegations of child pornography were very serious also, and that weighed against my intuition of, oh, there’s something wrong here.” Bernal said he gave the caller remote access to his account so the money could be transferred. When that did not work, the caller suggested buying Lowe’s gift cards instead to secure his money. “At that point I figured he must have me on a map or something because he knew there there’s a Lowe’s really close by.” Should stores do more to alert customers? Bernal said he was at a Lowe’s store five minutes later. He said a manager increased the gift card purchase limits from $500 to $2,000, allowing him to buy two gift cards while the scammer stayed on the phone with him the entire time. He added that he did not notice signs in the store warning customers about gift card scams and does not remember employees discussing the possibility that he was being scammed. “If they would have said something like that, it would have supported my, that little voice in my head saying, don’t do this.” Bernal says he didn’t see the warnings next to the gift cards, explaining he may have been too caught up in the moment to notice them. NBC 7 Responds went to the same store and found a few signs warning customers. Lowe’s sent NBC 7 Responds the following statement. A customer service associate and an assistant manager both followed the steps outlined in Lowe’s comprehensive employee training program for recognizing and responding to possible gift card scams. We reviewed their interactions on store video. Both Lowe’s employees asked the customer what the gift cards were being purchased for and both advised the customer about gift card scams, before involving the store manager in the transaction, in line with Lowe’s training. Bernal maintained this simply didn’t happen. “No, no, they said nothing about it.” After leaving the store, he said the caller instructed him to immediately scratch off the backs of the gift cards and send photos showing the card numbers. He said the $4,000 was gone just like that. Bernal texted pictures of the gift cards to an impostor federal agent. He never saw his $4,000 again. FTC reports concerning trend According to the Federal Trade Commission, the agency received 35,321 reports involving gift or reload card scams in 2025, with reported losses totaling more than $233.4 million. That exceeds reported annual losses from 2021 through 2024. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported in February that six states have passed laws during the past five years requiring merchants to post visible warnings about potential gift card fraud: Delaware, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. The organization also reported that Maryland, Nebraska and New York require state governments to provide model notices merchants can use to meet those requirements. Maryland and New Jersey have also passed additional laws related to packaging, record-keeping and employee training. “I don’t know if that I would put any blame on them,” said Bernal, making it clear that he accepts responsibility for what happened. Though he believes merchants could do more to help customers recognize gift card scams before they lose money. Lowe’s also told NBC 7 Responds that gift card purchases are handled like cash transactions, making it impossible to track who redeems the cards. The company said anyone who discovers they were the victim of a gift card scam should report it to the store immediately. Consumers should also remember that no government agency will ever ask someone to pay or send money using gift cards. Bernal says the road to recovery will be a difficult one, financially and emotionally. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less