Is charging a gift card without money illegal?

Welcome to Fluther.

The problem could be fraud, charged against you, not whoever made the charge in good faith.

If you provide a debt instrument (the gift card, in this case) which has zero value, but which you expect to be charged against (and which will not be reimbursed in some other way, as a credit card also has “zero value”, but creates a debt that the holder promises to pay), then it could be said that you have committed fraud.

Whether such a strong charge would be made for such a trivial amount is doubtful. But that’s the actuality of the thing.

Their charging was not illegal. How were they to know if there was money on it or not?

The only legality question is if you knew they would be attempting to charge the card. If you knew and gave them the number to get something without paying, then you would be at fault.

It’s theft. Theft is illegal.

Yes, you authorized a charge to a card which you knew to hold no value. That’s pretty clear cut fraud. You might not be prosecuted for it, but it’s still fraudulent. I hope this isn’t any indication of how you operate your business.

I keep an old Visa gift card handy for “free trials” that want my credit card information, so I’m not charged if I forget to cancel before the trial period is over… but that doesn’t sound like that’s what this was.

In this case, I’m almost certain they won’t mind terribly comping you the few credits you got for “free”, since if it works you’re likely to spend money to run ads again. But yeah… it’s fraud.

Watch your credit rating, they may post that you have made a fraudulent charge. They would be justified.