Does possession of a gift-card code prove purchase?¶

No. Possession of a gift-card code shows access to the code at a particular time, not necessarily who bought it.

Avoid the dangerous assumption¶

The dangerous assumption is that the person holding the code must be the purchaser, owner or intended recipient.

Gift-card codes are transferable and easily copied.

They may be sent by email or message, photographed, written down, sold online, shared between people or intercepted.

A person may possess the code after receiving it as a gift, buying it from another person, finding it on a device or obtaining it through fraud.

The original purchaser may never possess the physical card or may no longer control the code.

Preserve where the code was found, the device or account containing it, the surrounding messages and any receipt or purchase record.

Do not redeem or test unused value without authority and operational justification.

Ask the provider for purchase, activation, delivery, account-linkage, balance and redemption history.

Compare the code with bank or card payments, retailer CCTV, order records, emails, messages and device evidence.

If the code appears in several accounts or devices, establish when each copy was created or received where possible.

A redeemed code may still be evidentially useful even when no value remains.

When reporting, state that the person possessed or had access to the code unless purchase is independently established.

Do not collapse possession, purchase, ownership and redemption into one conclusion.

Operational takeaway¶

Treat possession of a gift-card code as evidence of access and use provider, retailer and communication records to prove purchase, transfer or redemption separately.