Like it or not, when a company issues a gift card they have to realize that they could potentially be around for a long time, especially now that the federal gift card laws require they don’t expire for at least 5 years. That is the lesson Apple learned when it advertised 99 cent songs on […]
Archive for the ‘Legal & Regulatory’ Category
Have you ever wondered what gift cards would be like in this country if we had no gift card laws or consumer watchdogs? Look no further than China as this recent report illustrates. Prepaid gift cards make up almost 10% of Chinas $1.56 trillion consumer economy, at around $153 billion dollars. For comparison, that is […]
Contacting the consumer advocate at your local newspaper or TV station can be a great way to get a company that is shirking its legal, moral, or ethical obligations to pay attention and do the right thing. So I pay attention to those consumer advocates with great interest to see what publicly shamed company is […]
Here is an interesting ruling that finds that state gift card laws do not apply to airline gift certificates. Specifically, the court found that California’s law against gift cards with expiration did not apply to an airline gift certificate that had a one year expiration date. Div. Four agreed with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge […]
Just a reminder, the new gift card rules authorized by the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009 and finalized by the Federal Reserve earlier this year take effect today, August 22nd. An important exception though is that open-loop (Visa, MasterCard) gift cards requirement to have more informative packaging has been delayed until 2011, to give […]
About a month ago, I did a post on Plastic Jungle’s announcement that they were working with First Data, who runs a number of retailers gift card back end networks, to be able to start processing secondary gift card sales electronically rather than by mail, thus making the process more efficient and easier for customers. […]
I feel for the government, I really do. It is well known that terrorists, drug gangs, and other criminals are using prepaid debit cards (including gift cards) to launder money and circumvent financial reporting rules. But do we really need draconian rules in place that will make buying a prepaid card of any type a […]
New Hampshire is a great state. They have no state income tax and no state sales tax. Their motto is Live Free or Die. And in New Hampshire, gift cards and gift certificates with an original face value of $100 or less are not allowed to expire. Ever.
The National Conference of State Legislatures has put together this great summary of state gift card laws, which also includes each state’s Escheat provisions (state’s rules on claiming unspent gift card funds as unclaimed property that must be turned over to the state), something which the slightly simpler to read Consumers Union gift card law […]
Hawaii’s governor is threatening to veto a bill that purports to sync up Hawaii’s gift card laws with the new Federal standards, but also changes the rules to allow card issuers to add new fees that are currently not allowed. Under the proposed law, retailers would be allowed to add an up-front fee that buyers […]
A bill passed by the House (summary here) of Representatives this week would delay the onset of the disclosure requirements of the gift card provisions from until January 31, 2011. The disclosure requirements are considered among the most onerous of the new gift card regulations because they all but insure that gift card issuers will […]
We recently reported on Plastic Jungle’s integration with First Data’s electronic gift card network, allowing them to handle some gift cards electronically, saving customers the trouble of completing transactions by mail. Here is what First Data has to say about working with Plastic Jungle: But now there are sites that can provide a trusted environment […]
Holy cow! According to this article by the Australian Herald Sun 30% of the $1.2 billion Australians spend on gift cards this year will go unspent. The main reason seems to be that Australian law doesn’t restrict expiration at all and my gift cards expire after only 12 months. Another difference between Australia and the […]
Apparently MasterCard and Visa are clamping down on the use of prepaid (reloadable?) debit cards for use at online gambling websites to comply with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). It isn’t clear whether this applies to just some of the vendors of prepaid cards (Vanilla Visa, NetSpend) or all of them. It also […]
A troubling trend that has developed over the last few years has been States extending their unclaimed property laws to apply to gift cards, which means stealing away the free money that retailers thought they were entitled to when consumers didn’t use up their gift cards. Many states now do this. I have always assumed […]
For some reason, iTunes customers in Canada can’t use gift cards to purchase apps from the app store. Seems that this might be in violation of Canadian law as such terms must be disclosed on the packaging so that consumers know the full story before purchase. This little tidbit of information is only available on […]
Judd over at ScripSmart has tackled one of the things I’ve had on my list for a long time but never got around to – compiling information on all lots of individual gift cards. Additional information included in his very useful site is information about gift card state laws, a comparison of state vs Federal […]
Not like we didn’t see more of this coming given the huge state budget deficits that exist for most states right now. While so far the legislation is only a proposal, it is one of the more ominous such unclaimed property policies we have seen. Under the proposed legislation, gift cards would be considered dormant […]
Colorado Senate bill 10-155, awaiting signature by the governor, would do away with all gift card fees of any kind. Alas, it does not apply to what they call “general purpose” cards, or open-loop gift cards. If signed, the law would take effect Aug 11.
I’m not sure the history of the laws around gift card fees in Hawaii, but, in a move that seems contrary to the trends in legislation both at the State and Federal levels, Hawaii’s legislature voted to approve the charging of fees, up to 10% of the gift cards face value with a maximum of […]
RSS