Call it phone-card tampering. Buy $50 worth of phone-card minutes, and with a swipe of that card at the cash register, your minutes go to a mystery number instead of yours. You've been ripped off—charged for something that you can't use.

Brian Greene of Apopka is the first known victim. Greene, a carpenter, started using the Boost cell-phone system last month. He walked into a 7-Eleven, paid for a Boost card, and followed the instructions on the back. "Not only did the minutes credited go to somebody else's phone number, but this particular card was used previous to the date that I bought it," Greene says. "There were no obvious signs that the card had been tampered with. It looked brand new, just like every other card on the rack."

Investigators with Boost and 7-Eleven are convinced thieves walked off with an entire stock of cell-phone cards, encoded an active phone number on the cards that would be credited with each card purchased, and then put them back in the 7-Eleven stores in Apopka.

Phil Clevenger, a field merchandiser with 7-Eleven, said it's not clear how many of the company's 589 Florida stores were targeted or why. But he said the Boost cards at every 7-Eleven store in Florida were removed, destroyed and replaced with new cards. And 7-Eleven said it will give refunds to every customer who has a receipt and can show that they have not been credited with the minutes they purchased.

The cards are sold across the state at dozens of locations, not just 7-Elevens but also Boost stores, Best Buy and others. It isn't clear how widespread the phone-card scam is. Danielle Alvarez, Boost spokeswoman, says the "pirate" number was tracked down and disconnected. No arrests have been made.

According to Alvarez, consumers can protect themselves by following basic protocol to make sure the cards they're buying haven't been tampered with:

• Look at the back of the card to make sure the magnetic strip doesn't have swipe marks on it.

• Make sure the silver scratch area that conceals the PIN hasn't been tampered with or scratched off.

• Check the overall condition of the card to make sure it isn't warped, creased or marked in any way: it should look new.

And if it doesn't? Pick up another card and do it again till you find one that does. And give the tampered cards to the store manager.

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Mike Holfeld is an Emmy-award winning reporter for WKMG Local 6 and a regular contributor to Seminole magazine. He can be reached at MikeH@wkmg.com. Join his Facebook news connection at facebook.com/mikeholfeld.

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