Saturday, March 22, 2008

Beware Gift Cards

I have a few gift cards that I haven't gotten around to using, and I also have given them as presents at holidays. I never really considered the negative to this.

For example, let's take what happened at the Sharper Image - a tech gift store. The store declared bankruptcy, so that means that anyone who purchased a gift card is out of luck. Yes, this means that the gift card to the Sharper Image that you bought a friend or received as gift is now pretty useless. That is something that really strikes me as unfair, but sometimes these things happen. The company is now protected by bankruptcy laws, and this is legal.

Initial Story - March 6

There is some hope for people who have these gift cards. They will apparently be allowed to use them towards a purchase, but you must pay in cash for at least half the item.

Let's say you had two $25 gift cards and wanted to buy a $50 item. You would only be able to use one gift card, and would have to pay the other $25 in cash.

Yeah, that stinks, but then again, this is just the way laws work. If nothing else, it has given me something to think about when buying gift cards.

New requirements at Sharper Image

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