Despite a raft of bad publicity, gift cards continue to be a popular choice among holiday shoppers. If you give or receive a gift card this year, Consumer Reports offers some helpful advice. For givers, the magazine suggests steering clear of retailers that are known to be struggling (it’s tough to redeem a card from a bankrupt store) and give the recipient a printout of the card’s terms and conditions. If you receive a gift card, register it right away in case the card is lost or stolen, use it quickly, and if you have any trouble with the retailer honoring the card, check out this state-by-state listing of gift card laws.
If you’re thinking about giving a gift card, why not give cash instead? Marketers have conditioned us to believe there’s something tacky about giving cash, an effective strategy for generating gift card fees and profits from unused balances. But cash is accepted everywhere, it never expires, and while the issuer is certainly on shaky financial footing these days, it’s not likely to go out of business.
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