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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."
If expiration dates on gift certificates are banned, how do they determine when a gift certificate is 'unclaimed'?
Belive me if you want, but I'm a former Amazon.com retail customer service monkey, and I was employed when the the A2Z shell company was created. We we're essentially told that Idaho was the home of the new company for the express purpose of being able to keep expired GC's. This move coresponded very close in time to a change in policy to never extend the life of a GC past it's original date. Previously, all GC's were 1 year, but we would renew them over and over again so long as you called/emailed and asked. When I left, it was changed to 2 years, but under no circumstances could the date be moved back.
When we all asked about just how shady this move (and dozens of other matters you don't want to know about) was, it was always sold to us as "It will help us profit, which will make your stock go up."
However, we were not to mention these reasons to customers, but rather to fill them with some BS about having the freedom to serve them better or something like that. This resulted in the day I got in trouble for "telling the truth to a customer." Seems they didn't appreciate me explaining to a customer why Idaho is a great place to start a shell GC company.
I think everyone should work for Amazon.com for at least a couple months. You will forever appreciate whatever other job you're at, plus you will have hundreds of hilarious stories to tell.
I'll elaborate:
1. First of all at the initial purchasing of this piece of plastic/paper, the retailer gets straight up cash with no physical loss of goods until possibly months later. In that time the money could be used for all sorts of useful things.
2. People who receive gift certificates feel obligated to use them to their full amount, otherwise they will lose the value of the card. The only problem is few things are exactly worth $20, so the consumer is forced to either pay up their own money for something, or buy something for less than the value of the card.
3. Gift certificates can't be banked or deposited, they can only be storted in some physical location, making them far easier to lose than money.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind buying or receiving gift certificates. They have saved me tons of time buying gifts. But I think it's clear retailers are getting quite a deal out of it.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
I received a $50 Best Buy gift certificate for Christmas but I cannot find it anywhere!
At least now I know that I have a lifetime to search for it.
There are other ways of getting to the money. Simon Properties, a popular Mall management / owner company, offers gift cards. For each month of inactivity, they charge a fee ... something like $1.25 or so, around what an ATM fee might be. So if you get a $40 gift card, use $30 of it and leave it for 5 months, you've got a $0 balance.
Starbucks is or was doing something similar if I recall correctly.
They'll get you one way or another.
AC
I've more than once managed to use an expired gift voucher, with some gentle persuasion.
I guess it boils down to the store and how rigid they are with their policies, but if they reject it, then they run the risk of you shopping elsewhere.
"Gift Cards" offered by retailers are one of those phenomena in which it pays to read the fine print. Some people would assume, incorrectly, that there is some kind of "set standard" for gift card practices, when, in fact, you don't really know what you are "buying". I worked for a retailer that, on occasion gave away "$25 coupons" (not gift card/certificates) with every "$50 purchase", but, due to fine print in the company's "gift card" policy, the shopper could not apply "gift card purchases" toward that offer. The way the fine print stated it, the "purchase" of a gift card is not a "purchase" at all, as the actual "purchase" occours when the gift card is redeemed.
I always thought this was a little shady, as the customer is actually handing over their money (ie: purchasing) when they buy the gift card, but my company's legal team didn't see it that way, insisting that "gift cards" did not constitute a "product" being purchased, it was simply money exchanged between "accounts".
I wonder why it's acceptable to send someone an Amazon gift card as a present, but it's not acceptable to send them $20 cash, which would be more generally useful.
Maybe it's because then we would realize that the cash exchange cancels out to zero. If we convert the cash to a non-interchangeable form of private money, it makes it seem like the whole exercise has some kind of point.
I guess it's yet another example of an opportunity for smart proprietors to profit off of a common logic flaw in the human brain.
...this was a statistic quoted to me by a guy who sold these for a living. I sat next to him on a plane back in January.
He sold gift cards to smaller companies, mom and pop stores (not Best Buy or Amazon type juggernauts), and used the main selling points that it was often instant revenue, and the 12% that was never used became pure profit for the company.
He also said that these things sold themselves. I guess he never tried to sell them in Delaware.
2. People who receive gift certificates feel obligated to use them to their full amount, otherwise they will lose the value of the card. The only problem is few things are exactly worth $20, so the consumer is forced to either pay up their own money for something, or buy something for less than the value of the card.
This is probably the biggest benefit to the retailers. I myself just received a 300-yen gift certificate from amazon.co.jp good for three months or so, and while I know enough about the system not to run out and spend it (plus my own money) on some random thing, I have to admit the temptation is there to find something I'd want anyway and get it before the gift certificate expires.
If Japan had a law preventing expiration, that psychological pressure would definitely be lessened.
...all the thought of cash, just not as good.
Seriously, why do people give these things? **NOBODY** wouldn't rather have cash. I suppose people think that it proves that they put some kind of thought into it, but they're wrong. "Oh, he's a techie person, give him a CompUSA gift card." Gee, thanks. If I had cash instead I could get the tech stuff I *want* instead of what CompUSA happens to have. Or maybe my car is broken this week, but it's hard to get the mechanic to take a $100 CompUSA card in payment.
I work in this industry, so maybe I can shed some light on the situation.
When one purchases a gift card from XYZ store, say for $50.00, the card has no link to the customer. This means there is no name or other personal data stored on the system for that card number. We store the card number, date of issuance, location of issuance, and amount of issuance for each card.
When XYZ takes the money for that gift card, it is not counted as revenue, since no good or service has been purchased. In the normal life of a card, purchases are made, and eventually the value of the card goes to zero. In the mean time, XYZ stores the funds in an account and makes interest off of the money.
When gift cards were first issued, part of the "agreement" was that after 24 months of non-usage (the clock begins again after a purchase, refund, addition of funds, or a balance inquiry (for some clients). After the 24 months, a dormancy fee of (say) $2.00/month kicks in back to the last time the card was used. This means now our $50.00 gift card has $2.00 ($50 - ($2.00 * 24)) left on it. After month 25, the value would be zero.
Dormancy is used not only to remove old cards off of the system, but to move funds to the retailer in the form of a service charge. All was well and good (from the retailer's point of view) until a case was brought forward in California. The arguement was that these are customer's funds and the Company has no right to claim them because no goods or services were exchanged. The case was won, but a new problem was presented -- who gets the funds?
Remember, no personal data is attached to the card number, so there is no way XYZ can go back to the purchaser and say hey -- you have $50 you forgot about!
Enter, the state. The law already states that a bank has to turn over dormant accounts to the State or Federal government (depending if the Bank is State of Federal) after a period of time (7 years if I remember correctly). States are seeing these Gift Card funds as a easy source of revenue. Although all one has to do to claim the money is produce the gift card to the State, the likelyhood of this happening is small. This basicly means low risk funds coming into the State that although technically remains on the books as unclaimed funds, can be used to help cover state budgets.
This is a simplified version of the issue, but this for the most part what is happening. More States are looking into this as it appears friendly to the consumer while moving funds into state coffers.
Beware of Sleestak