Gift card issuing banks have gone and pissed off Conn. State Senator Tom Colapietro and he’s on the warpath. I wasn’t aware of this but Connecticut acutally passed a state gift card law with some teeth. The 2005 law prohibits dormancy or inactivity charges on ANY gift cards, including open-loop ones. What is happening now is that Federally chartered banks are issuing open-loop Visa and Mastercard gift cards in Connecticut and claiming the law doesn’t apply to them because they are not state chartered.

So he’s enrolling the states Senators and Congress people to support federal legilation to make federally chartered banks obey state laws on gift cards. It isn’t exactly a full federal ban on these type of fees, but it is a start. (article)

Sen. Charles Schumer announced today details on what he calls the “Fair Gift Card Act” that he hopes will be passed next year. Those details include gift cards being free of fees for two years, and thereafter a maximum of $1 in fees per months. Sounds like a solid improvement. Incidentally, from this letter I found from Consumers Union, it sounds like Sen. Schumer has been trying to get such a law passed since 2004.

If you care, I urge you to contact Sen. Schumer and asking him to include open-loop gift cards in his bill.

Sen. Charles Schumer will be introducing Federal Legislation that makes gift cards good for at least 5 years and makes the fees that whittle down gift card balances illegal. While it would be nice to have a single consistent Federal Law rather than the mich-mash of state laws we have now, there is still no talk about including open-loop gift cards in the legislation. Open-loop gift cards are among the worst offenders in the not-well-disclosed and very unreasonable fees game.

Manhattan Advertising & Media Law (a law firm) has put together this handy state-by-state map for looking up the gift card laws.

My first thought at hearing that a group of retailers was forming a group to protect consumer interests for gift cards, was something about a fox guarding a hen house. But this actually sounds like it might be a good thing if they truly stick with the principles they are initially suggesting that members be held to.

Illnois has a new gift card law that takes effect on Jan 1st, 2009 and requires that gift cards last for a minimum of 5 years and bans non-use fees. The new law applies only to gift cards purchased on or after Jan 1, 2009. Like every other gift card law, it does not apply to general purpose (open-loop) gift cards. (article)

This is a BIG deal! The FDIC today issued an opinion stating that funds on gift cards and other stored value cards are FDIC insured if they are issued by an FDIC insured bank. (article) To my knowledge, there haven’t been any bank failures that have resulted in gift card holders being left out in the cold, but that seems a very likely scenario given the way things are going.

The FDIC further clarified this order (on 11/25/08) after an NPR news story that said the FDIC backing applies to all gift cards. It doesn’t, just to prepaid cards issued by FDIC backed banks.

American Express sells a lot of gift cards. Today, according to this article Amex was approved by the Federal Reserve to become a bank holding company. What this means for gift card holders is that there is a new venue to complain about problems with Amex gift cards. As a bank holding company, Amex will be overseen by the Federal Reserve. You can find out more about the Federal Reserve’s consumer compalint process here.

A New York appellate court came down hard on Simon Malls gift cards for their poor disclosure of fees, citing among other things fonts sizes smaller than allowed, fee information being buried in the fine print agreements, and for setting fees at grossly excessive amounts. (article)

Maine’s new gift card laws (article), allows anyone to cash out gift cards with a balance of less than $5.

Michigan’s new law (article) states that gift cards must be valid for a minimum of 5 years, issuers may not charge inactivity fees or other service fees, must not alter the gift cards terms & conditions after it is issued, and must not fail to disclose the terms & conditions.

It is unclear whether either of these new laws appy to open-loop (Visa, Mastercard type) gift cards. Most state laws for gift cards do not apply to these type of cards.

British Columbia has joined Alberta and a number of US states in banning gift card expiration. They also prohibit handling charges or fees except in limited circumstances. As with most such laws, once again open-loop (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) type gift cards are excluded from the new laws. Is it that Visa and Mastercard are such a strong lobbying force, or do lawmakers not fully understand how difficult they are to use up completely? (article)

The province of Alberta, Canada is the latest to ban gift card expiration dates. (article)

The big news in the last several days is Consumers Union, along with several other consumer groups petitioning the FTC to create new rules to protect gift card holders in cases of bankruptcy. Here is Consumers Union’s description of the petition.

According to this Wall Street Journal  blog entry, one Sharper Image gift card holder filed a class action suite on behalf of the Sharper Image gift card holders that are owed $19 million to make sure they are considered as creditors in the bankruptcy procedings.