The Amazing Expiring Money
One of the big shopping trends this past Christmas season was the gift card. It's really a gift certificate but looks like a credit card.
The mysterious thing about gift cards (and some gift certificates too) is they expire.
Let me see if I understand how this works.
I want to buy someone a gift, but don't know what they want. So I buy a gift card for them - say from Canadian Tire. I spend $50 for the gift card and my friend gets it on their birthday.
If I gave my friend $50 in cash, they would be able to spend that money today, tomorrow or a decade from now. Money's money.
If I gave my friend $50 in Canadian Tire Money, the same would pretty much apply.
However, if I give them a $50 gift card, they have to spend it within 2 years from the date I purchased the card or else it expires.
How can that be? How can money expire?
I'm not sure what the rationale is for companies to make their gift cards expire. Sure, most people will spend their $50 within two years, but some won't. Some will forget about the card altogether until they find it buried in their couch. They'll remember the birthday present and then go shopping at a Canadian Tire store sometime in the next couple of months - at which time they'll find the card has expired.
Of course, Canadian Tire still gets to keep the $50 if someone doesn't use the card before its expiry date. How convenient - for Canadian Tire, that is.
Home Depot also has gift cards, but theirs have no expiry dates on them.
The gift card represents another dimension of "the cashless society". The cash you spend today may disappear into the pockets of some corporation in a couple of years.
Think about that the next time you're thinking of a present for someone.
3 Comments:
Mark,
Since money doesn't really expire, it's not hard to see the rationale; an expiring gift card means nearly pure profit (minus manufacturing and management/infrastructure of the gift cards).
Cash is definitely better. A gift card is pretty much as thoughtless, but more constricting, cumbersome, and complex (the ”three Cs“?).
Daniel
Mark
I can totally identify with this exact situation. I have found one of those gift cards that you mention and as you can expect it was expired.
I contacted both the gift card people and the customer service people at Canadian Tire to see if I could "reactivate" my card.
I'll be right up front and say that the person I was dealing with was always polite (through email) and I thought was a good representative of their company. However the message they were bringing was not what I wanted to hear.
To keep a rather long discourse short, I was offered a $25 gift card as "a gesture of good will" and then in a follow-up email an additional $10 for my inconvenience.
I finally left it with the customer service rep that I either wanted a replacement card value of $50 or a letter stating that they would refund/reactivate my $50 card or a letter stating that they would not. I was not prepared to accept another "gesture of good will".
I still have not received either yet, however this was only a short time ago.
I will follow-up on this and post the results. If this is not resolved to my satisfaction then I plan on canceling all of my Canadian Tire credit cards, both personal and business and "letting the world know" and encouraging them to do the same. Also encouraging them to go shop somewhere else.
If the result is positive, I plan on also "letting the world know" but in a positive light.
Stay tuned for further developments.
John
Mark
Just to follow-up on my previous post, I received a replacement card in the mail today for the full amount.
It was unfortunate that it took several emails to get it resolved, but I must say that it is resolved to my satisfaction and in a timely manner once the "final email" was sent.
As promised, I would like to say to all the readers, I was treated with respect throughout this process. I will continue to shop at Canadian Tire and encourage others to do so. I will also say to everybody, please check the dates on those gift cards as you may not have the same positive experience as I did. I am sure if it were to happen again, the well would dry up pretty easy.
John
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