A few years ago, gift cards are THE currency in scamming world for shifting funds between victim and money launderer. They would ask victim to go to 8 different department stores to buy as many gift cards as the store allows then tell them the card number. It's pretty normal the victim hands them over 20 $200 gift cards. And the scammers will keep phishing the victim over and over again until there is no more money to squeeze.
Nowadays many scammers switch to digital concurrency like Bitcoin, which is even less traceable and hard to shut down, but that's only because banks and stores have put in the counter-measurements you encounter to combat them.
There are many scamming related materials available online. Many scam-baiters put their video on Youtube, such as Jim Browning [1] and Kitboga [2].
Absolutely. Walmart used to have a policy of refunding gift cards in cash. You'd buy many at one location, and return them at another. Less trackable. Gift cards are also used quite regularly in human/sex trafficking to control the victims.
