WA Bans Gift-Card Expirations, Fees

theodp writes "The Seattle Times reports on new legislation that makes WA one of 15-20 states that have passed or are in the process of adopting laws that ban expiration dates on gift certificates, which enjoyed sales of $40+ billion last year. The consumer protection law is also expected to address the cat-and-mouse games retailers play of shopping for states with unclaimed-property laws that allow them to pocket unused gift-card value. As it so happens, Delaware state law requires a company to send unclaimed gift certificate monies to the state, while Idaho allows a company to keep the cash for itself. While an Amazon.com spokeswoman said the company would adhere to the new WA law for WA residents, she declined to say why the Seattle-headquartered and Delaware-incorporated Amazon established an Idaho company two years ago called A2Z to handle its gift-card operations."

Comments

Re:booking of sales

[LostCluster]

However, increasingly states are passing laws that say "Forget it, if you sell a gift card here it's really a gift certificate so go see the book of laws that apply to that."

In Massachusetts, the tipping point was the bankruptcy of the Bradlee's department store chain. Bradlee's sold their gift cards up until the day that the announced their bankruptcy after business hours. The next day, when the stores reopened in the hands of a liquidator, the liquidator refused to honor the gift cards because they claimed they were not responsible for the liablities of the failed company, they were just their to extract whatever value possible from the assets.

The state eventually pressured the store into getting the liquidator to accept the cards by threatening to represent the card-holding consumers of the state as a stakeholder in the bankruptcy, which would have made a serious mess since all of the unclaimed cards would come back to haunt an already troubled company. Instead, it was simply announced that the cards were good at face value for the remainder of the going out of business sale until the end at which point they'd be worthless. The reform law was not far behind at that point.

Re:Amazon.com

[Red Warrior]

I've actually used a gift card that I noticed a year after I'd gotten it. When I get a gift card, it either goes in my junk drawer (where my checkbook is) or in my wallet. Then I forget about it until I want something specific. I treat it (improperly, it would seem, given this story) like cash.

Gift cards to someplace like, say Pier 1 can easily age a year or more. I only used it because I noticed it had an experation date.

Feh. Use cash. it doesn't expire. And it doesn't require people to buy stuff that they may not need just to avoid loosing it.