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Beware of gift cards and avoid pitfalls
[12:00:00 AM Wednesday, January 12, 2011]
Gift cards are a real boon for the last-minute holiday shopper as it is convenient, impersonal, and an easy gifting idea. Retailers love gift cards for another reason, which is that these gift cards can be either lost or forgotten. As per the recent survey, at least 27% of the recipients of gift cards haven`t redeemed their gift cards this year, which is up from 19% last year. As per the report by the financial analysts, consumers have forfeited $8 billion in the last year alone due to loss, expiry or cards that were unredeemed.
All the major retailers such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy sell their house-brand cards at their face value. The Walmart gift card for instance, costs $50 to purchase and never expires. If the card is purchased online, Walmart has a free shipping offer through the US Postal Service. The delivery time is between 7 to 10 days or the faster and costlier options which include one-day shipping that costs $15.
MasterCard, Visa, AmEx gift cards most often carry additional charges. For instance, GiftCards.com charges $2.95 as fees on cards that are in the value range of $20 to $74.99. It has an additional 44 cents in charges for shipping through USPS. The Visa card which actually costs $50 ends up being $53, and the charges for the virtual gift card by Visa is $4.95. Hence, the total cost is almost $55 on a virtual card for which the cost is actually $50.
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