What am I going to do with all these unused gift cards?

[Red-Green]

What am I going to do with all these unused gift cards?

[Tegger]

Red-Green wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There are places where you can sell or trade those unused gift cards. You can also acquire cards you actually would use from somebody selling or trading his.

[LSMFT]

Throw them away, it's all profit.

[Kurt Ullman]

That was my first thought. The other would be to send them to me. (grin).

[Kurt Ullman]

Actually no. Under the accounting regs, they have to be carried on the books as a liability until they are used. There might be some length of time after which they can book the profit, but the companies want you to use them ASAP.

[DerbyDad03]

[e-mail]:

I didn't think it was you.

First it was the hyphen, then it was the "Do Not Archive" message and then it was the stupid question.

Ignore the idjit...he'll go away if we don't encourage him.

[EXT]

Depending on your state or province, if the lawmakers haven't outlawed the practice, the companies that sell the gift cards assign a monthly fee to the card's value, slowly reducing the spending value of the card until the card becomes valueless. Many times this will only take a year to make the card useless, so I recommend that you use them as soon as possible so that you get some value from them.

[DerbyDad03]

re: "*the* companies that sell the gift cards assign a monthly fee to the card's value..."

Perhaps you should have said *some* companies.

Not all companies do it, not even within the same state. Some companies set fixed expiration dates, some decrease the value, some companies let them last "forever".

Sometimes they even mix-and-match. We have a car-wash that sells a "gift pack" of 3 car washes and dinner for 2 at a specific restaurant chain for $X.

The car wash coupons never expire but the restaurant card has an expiration date of about 3 months out.

[DerbyDad03]

What? Do you mean that you aren't going to take up this cause for the rest of us?

The next thing we'll know we'll be seeing posts from handles like these.

Then what will we do?

har-ry [e-mail] The-Daring-Dufas Hey-Bub Stormin-Mormon [e-mail] Derby-Dad-03 Jeff-Thies D-G-Devin Smitty-Two Or-en David-Nebenzahl Ed-Pawlowski [e-mail] ae-meijers [e-mail] m-m [e-mail] Higgs-Boson Pete-C. Vic-Smith james-gang-nc Kurt-Ullman

[DerbyDad03]

Thanks! That oughta take care of it.