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Attorney general and retailers back bill to better criminalize gift‑card tampering and theft
Summary
Senate Bill 258 would expand prosecutorial tools against gift‑card fraud by criminalizing tampering with gift‑card packaging and clarifying how theft value is determined for prosecutions. The Attorney General's Office and the New Hampshire Retail Association urged the House committee to adopt an AG amendment narrowing knowledge elements for
The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 258, which sponsors and prosecutors say modernizes theft statutes to address organized gift‑card tampering and related fraud.
Grant Bossi, deputy chief of staff for the New Hampshire Senate, introduced the bill on behalf of the sponsor and said retailers and federal partners had helped draft the language after retailers reported organized rings tampering with gift‑card barcodes to capture PINs and drain funds after cards were later activated.
Brian Townsend II, senior assistant attorney general, said the current theft statutes make it difficult to prosecute gift‑card skimming and tampering because it can be unclear what the "value" of the information or tampered card is. The bill would explicitly criminalize tampering with gift‑card packaging and set theft value as either the highest value printed on the packaging or a default amount ($250) if no value is printed. Townsend said the Attorney General's Office proposed an amendment to clarify that a person using a card to obtain goods or services must know or believe the card probably was obtained by deception or forgery, aligning the law with receiving stolen‑property standards.
Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Retail Association, said retailers support the bill and the attorney general's amendment. He described the scale of organized theft, saying retailers have encountered cases with thousands of cards in a suspect's possession and noted New Hampshire's lack of sales tax makes the state attractive to offenders redeeming stolen cards.
Lawmakers asked whether the statute allows conspiracy charges and whether the organized‑retail‑crime framework should be expanded to include the new theft subsection. Townsend said conspiracy and interstate prosecution are available tools and that the amended language could be considered for inclusion in the organized retail crime statute. Committee members also raised prevention measures such as signage and secure packaging; retailers and industry witnesses said the private sector is actively pursuing packaging and display changes but that measures vary by retailer.
No committee action was recorded in the transcript; witnesses said the Attorney General's Office would present a drafting amendment.
