Use Your Gift Cards - $2 Billion Will Go Unused

I find this figure absolutely amazing! $2 billion in gift cards will go unredeemed this year. That means retailers are making a lot of money off of unspent gift cards.

Some cards are lost or misplaced. Others are gift cards to places where you don’t shop. Sometimes some of the money is spent, but not all of it, leaving the retailer coming out ahead.

So, if you got a gift card over the holidays, the best advice is to use it before you lose it.

"Gift cards are a gift to the retailers, not necessarily to the consumers. So as a savvy, smart shopper you really need to pay attention to the gift cards that you have and make sure that you use them, and if you're not going to use them, then there's gift card exchanges online or even re-gifting," said Audrey Guskey, a marketing professor at Duquesne University.

In Pennsylvania, most gift cards are good for five years. After that, retailers are supposed to turn over the money to the state treasury department.

The state has already collected $2.7 million in unredeemed gift cards. According to the Attorney General’s office, that money is looked at as unclaimed cash that should go back to its rightful owner.

If you have an expired gift card, and a merchant won’t accept it, you can contact the Treasury Department by calling 1-800-222-2046 to try to claim your unredeemed money.

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