A Reminder That Many Gift Cards Go Unused
As the WSJ reports, many states are boosting revenues by collecting so-called "abandoned property," including unused retail gift cards. If a card is not used in as few as two years after being purchased, the states can claim the card's value.
States are supposed to track down the card owners and get them their money back, but often that's impossible. Many gift cards are purchased with cash and are totally untraceable. If that's the situation, the state generally collects the money. New York, for instance, collected $9.6 million in unused gift cards in 2008. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: About $65 billion is spent on gift cards in the U.S. annually, and $6.8 billion of that is never redeemed.
So if you've got gift cards lying around the house, try to use them. And if you're thinking about buying one as a gift, consider cash instead. You know that'll get used.
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[...] Regardless of what kind of gift card we're talking about or what the rules and fees involved are, take into consideration when you're shopping that a whole lot of gift cards are never used. [...]
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[...] usual shopping savvy disappears and you're more likely to buy items at full (non-discounted) price. You're also fairly likely to not use gift cards at all. Some estimates say that 10% of gift cards go [...]
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[...] on what stores are goners, WalletPop lists a bunch of them. Here's hoping that you don't have an unused gift card from any of the recently [...]
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[...] recipient is all but certain to use the cash. But the gift card? Who knows? Each year in the U.S., $6.8 billion—yes billion—worth of the gift cards bought are never redeemed. If you actually want the recipient to get something out of your gift, cash makes more sense—even [...]
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