How are the scammers alerted that money has been loaded onto the card? I get that the scammers have the card numbers. How do they know when to drain the money?

That’s really frustrating. One thing that’s helped me is using myprepaidcenter. It lets you check your card balance, see transactions, and manage your card. Keeping an eye on your card’s activity can help you spot anything weird early and deal with it quickly. Also, whenever I get a gift card, I check it right away for any tampering and register it as soon as I can.