MILWAUKEE — With less than 2 weeks to go until Christmas and Hanukkah, and in the midst of the always-busy holiday shopping season, the Better Business Bureau's warning about scammers targeting gift cards to drain as soon as someone unknowingly buys them. 

"We're hearing a lot about gift cards and gift card drainage and gift card tampering this year," said Lisa Schiller with the Wisconsin Better Business Bureau. "We're trying to warn the public to be on the lookout for this gift card drainage and check the gift cards before you purchase them—make sure they haven't been tampered with and if you suspect anything at all, if it looks like it may have been tampered with, don't purchase it and take it directly to customer service."

Schiller said scammers often are able to swipe the card's number or data before placing it back into its packaging or reapplying a sticker to make it look new, and then after eventually calling the card's corresponding 800 number to check its balance, scammers can drain the card as soon as they confirm money's been added to it.

"Sometimes these gift cards are tampered with and you don't even know it," Schiller said. "It's just something that's going around right now—very common."

Watch the full interview above.