Gift Cards Really Piss Me Off

Tonight I need to get on my soapbox and rant for a few minutes about the use of gift cards and the aspects of gift cards that really piss me off.
With the Christmas holiday having come and gone, many of you likely have a stack of gift cards to a variety of stores. The gift card has almost become the standard gift – particularly for those that you might not be very close to and know what they would want as a gift.
Some of the gift cards might be for stores that you regularly shop at but most likely you have a few that are for stores that you rarely visit. These are the cards that normally present the greatest amount of frustration.
Now I am well aware that there are online services where one can sell or exchange gift cards. Personally I’ve never used such a service as it seems like far too much of a hassle – plus I wouldn’t have anything to complain about then. 😛
Assuming that you keep all of the gift cards that you received, you now have to deal with some cards that charge you a fee if you do not use the card by a certain date. This is something that bothers me as the store has already received the equivalent value of money from the person that purchased the gift card. If I want to hold onto my gift card for two years until I find something that I want, I shouldn’t be penalized for doing so.
Hell, I will already be penalized by inflation as the $25.00 gift card today will not buy as much in two years. But this aspect of gift cards is not the thing that really gets me mad about the use of gift cards.
The number one complaint that I have with gift cards is when the store has a policy where they will not give you cash back once you have used the card. Don’t get me wrong – I understand why these stores are following these policies but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it.
The gift card industry has turned into a cash cow for retailers as cards are purchased and never used, or cards sit with credits of only a few dollars never to be used again. Add that up over the number of gift cards that are sold each year and you can see why the retailers are in love with these cards.
But the fact that a store requires me to keep a gift card with a credit balance of $1.63 because they have a policy not to refund cash is insane. This might not be a huge deal for the stores that you shop at regularly, as you will likely have numerous opportunities to use up the remainder of the balance.
It is when you have a store that you rarely visit that you really get burned by the store credit on the gift card. As I’ve mentioned before, I will never spend another penny of my money at Best Buy. When I have received a gift card and used as much of the card as possible, I will normally give the gift card with the remaining balance to the person behind me in line.
The other day we used a few gift cards that we had received for Burger King. We never eat at Burger King but had been out shopping and decided to use the gift cards. The total bill resulted in a difference of less than $2.00 and the cashier handed us back the card with a balance instead of giving us cash. Since we do not eat there, we would be giving free money to Burger King by holding onto this card.
As much as I like the convenience of gift cards, I hate this practice of refusing to give cash back after a purchase. For some reason giving cash has been labeled as an impersonal gift while gift cards are completely acceptable.
Who is behind that movement? Retailers?
From now on I am going to seriously consider giving cash in lieu of gift cards, as that will give the person receiving the gift the freedom to do as they wish with the gift. They will not be required to spend the entire amount within 90 days or face the possibility of losing 2% of the balance for each 30 days the card is not used. They will not be required to buy something at Barnes & Noble when they prefer to shop online at Amazon.
Cash is king!