Don’t let gift cards go to waste: How to use unwanted gift cards

Would you stuff $50 in your drawer and forget about it? Probably not.

Yet, consumers do things like that all the time with gift cards. About $5 billion — yes, billion — worth of gift cards issued during the 2009 holiday season will be lost to fees or expiration dates, misplaced or forgotten, said CreditCards.com’s, Ben Woolsey.

“That’s a huge amount of money that consumers will be wasting,” Woolsey said.

Georgia law requires that expiration dates be printed on gift cards or gift certificates. Dormancy fees must be either printed on the card or on a sticker affixed to it.

Still, valuable cards are often wasted.

Thankfully, the Federal Reserve has issued new rules that will help consumers. Starting Aug. 22, consumers will have five years once gift cards are activated to use them before they expire. Inactivity fees will be prohibited in the first year and only charged thereafter if the card hasn’t been used for at least a year. No more than one fee can be charged a month.

But what happens if you’re holding a card that you’re not all that interested in using? Let’s say you received a gift card to one of your least favorite restaurants or to a clothing store that doesn’t carry your style or size. Or, what if you use most of the balance on the card, but you’re left with $2 or $3 — hardly enough to buy anything at all at that particular store?

Consider these options:

– GiftCardGiver.com: Based in Atlanta, this company will gladly stockpile the dollars left on your gift cards and combine them into a higher value gift card that is donated to a non-profit agency. So, the $5 left on your card won’t get you much, but when you and 10 others donate the same amount, it adds up to enough to help someone in need with a significant item. Last year they gave $40,000 in unused gift cards to 62 organizations.

“Billions of dollars in gift cards go unused every year,” said founder Jeff Shinabarger. “If we can get a portion of that huge quantity of dollars, we could do so much good in our community.”

– PlasticJungle.com: You wish you had the money on that card to pay a bill than buy another dress, right? You’re not alone, which explains in part why Plastic Jungle is so popular. You can sell your $100 card and get a slightly lesser amount in cash than the card’s value, in return.

You can also buy all kinds of gift cards at a discount of about 15 percent less than the face value. The company verifies the value on each card. You can also donate the full face value of a gift card to schools through DonorsChoose.org. SwapaGift.com will buy unwanted gift cards, and you can buy and sell cards on GiftCardRescue.com.

Question: Have you used the gift card you received over the holidays? Have you ever let a gift card expire? Have you ever been hit with fees on gift cards?

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