Has anyone tried to prosecute misuse of a "gift card" under credit card/debit card abuse? I would prefer to try to do this as a felony rather than theft of $25 etc. but question whether we can fit this into credit/debit because of the precise language of the statute in the definitions of credit/debit card. How have y'all done this? handled these cases?

Cynthia Villanueva
Kleberg County District Attorney's Office

I used the forgery statute to file on a counterfeit gift certificate considering that the gift certificate was a sight order for money. I dont know that it will work, but we will see.

I think that the statute pretty well has you boxed out for trying to say it is a credit or a debit card, but it might be worth looking into how the crook got hold of the gift card in the first place? There might be a way to boost the offense that way. Just a thought.

The subject works at the store and when people would come in with a gift card with some money on it to make a purchase, would hand them back a blank one instead of one with the correct balance. Thanks for the suggestions, I will take anything I can to try to make it a felony. At this point it looks like we will just have to aggravate the thefts but it will still probably just be a misdemeanor. There was nothing to sign so there is no forgery and I agree, this seems to be a "sight order" not a debit or credit card.

What about filing the thefts individually, where you can get over $50, so that when this defendant steals again in the future, you'll have a shot at enhanceing to SJF?