this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Gift cards make great stocking stuffers — just as long as you don’t stuff them in a drawer and forget about them after the holidays.

Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales.

Most of those gift cards will be redeemed. Paytronix, which tracks restaurant gift card sales, says around 70% of gift cards are used within six months.

But many cards — tens of billions of dollars’ worth — wind up forgotten or otherwise unused. That’s when the life of a gift card gets more complicated, with expiration dates or inactivity fees that can vary by state.

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[–] Lophostemon@aussie.zone 18 points 10 months ago (3 children)

They should automatically refund to money if not spent in 5 years or so.

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Gift cards would cease to exist overnight if that was a requirement.

They hope you forget, it's free money.

But if every dollar had to be worth a dollar, there would be no space to squeez in operating costs - issuance, accounting, all that jazz.

Sure, they'll bring in a couple more customers maybe, sure, you can make some money on the interest in the meantime, but it just wouldn't be worth it IMO.

[–] quams69@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Gift cards would cease to exist overnight if that was a requirement."

Okay 👍

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

Obviously it's a hyperbole.

Please share your argument or don't waste the bandwidth of your lemmy server.

[–] devious@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Refund automatically to who? Most gift card sales are fairly anonymous, and I much prefer that than having to give details out.

[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The money laundering risk would be pretty high for them to do that

[–] rdyoung@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

How so? People laundering money aren't going to wait that long for clean funds ignoring the obvious issues with then attempting to refund cash to fake names and addresses because if the so called launderers used their real info it would be too easy to prosecute them.

Long story short, this would be the most inefficient way to clean cash.