Meanwhile, if you give someone a video game, 12% of that game may go unplayed. Would you really consider giving someone a video game which they played 88% of to be wasted? I love GTA IV and haven't played more than 70% of it.

Meanwhile, if you give someone a sweater, they may absolutely never wear it. How is that any better than a gift card they have a 12% chance of not using at all? Sounds worse to me.

If you're already giving money away, it won't be "stolen by evil corporations" just because of how you packaged it. I threw out 12% of the Turkey we had left over from Christmas, damn those bastards at the grocery store scamming us into buying food that we only eat 88% of!

12% of gift card value is never spent. That breakage will amount to about $8.0 BILLION this year! This breakage amount is more than DOUBLE the $3.5 billion annually estimated to be lost from debit and credit card fraud.

Best Buy, for instance, earned $16 million last year in gift-card "breakage," In its 2006 10-K Best Buy footnote is the statement that the company does "not have a legal obligation to remit the value of unredeemed gift cards to the relevant jurisdictions."
All of this means bigger profits and larger bonuses for company executives.

My Christmas shopping took me all of 2 hours. I bought Christmas cards for everyone and gave them cash. I had so much more free time during the holiday season by not running with the herds in the malls, and the lack of stress will undoubtedly prolong my life.

Stop the so far legal but unethical theft of your hard earned money. DO NOT BUY GIFT CARDS!!!!

Why should they be allowed to not take these cards when they are still freely selling items in the store?

They are Shafting US.

Perhaps KBToys will not be around but this will hurt the entire gift card business. I'm not buying another gift card from Any Company. I would hope anyone else who is getting legally shafted by an operating company would follow suit.

Retailers think it is bad now? They haven't seen anything yet.

California has such a law. However, it only applies to gift cards that were purchased at face value.

So, if you paid $10 for a $10 gift card, (or someone who gave you the card paid $10 for a $10 gift card)

If you received a card as a promotion (ie, a gift card received with the purchase of an item, or you get a $15 gift card for $10) then they can expire.

Now for the person who's son got the KB GC for XMas and now it's not worth anything, well that's just shitty. Stores shouldn't be allowed to sell GCs if they know they're not going to accept them a month later.

Just another piece of my childhood dying off.

Well clearly, but no one forces consumers to buy gift cards either. If gift cards expired after a certain amount of time, I wouldn't buy them, nor would any smart person. So it seems like that things would balance out. The stores would come up with a reasonable time to keep gift cards active, and consumers would spend them in a reasonable amount of time.

And I suppose I get what you're saying about the interest offsetting it but I still don't get why it's something so many states felt compelled to make a law over. Were people being sold gift cards that expired in a week or something?

...and this is why, whenever i don't know what to get someone, i give them cash. because it's just as impersonal and it never expires.

for me, it's actually more personal because i can do whatever i want with it, or more importantly, pay rent!

Is anyone here from the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago? This sounds like Randhurst, in Mount Prospect.

It's a sad story indeed:

[en.wikipedia.org]

Perhaps because they were willing to take the money? Nobody forces stores to offer gift cards...

And, more than that, you would think the 4% yearly interest they can make (at minimum) on your money would more than offset the cost of maintaining your balance.

The nearest pure toystore we have now is a Toys-R-Us 40 miles away...

That's crazy. I've never heard that but I know radioshack makes most of their money now through cell phones. Without cell phones I think radioshack would close its doors and then brick and mortar people would have nowhere to go to get random parts and overpriced cables.

Shouldn't the headline read "KB Toys Giftcards Will No Longer Be Taken After TODAY"?

Already used mine. I might check to see if they have any more used PS3 games.

The feds need to step in and offer something like the FDIC for gift cards.

Laws should be enacted so that consumers do not lose the money they loan to the companies. Something like putting the money in escrow type account. (The companies will not have access to that money) until the consumer uses the card. If the retailer goes out of business the money is returned to the consumers.

It's a very slimy business practice about these gift cards that you lose your money like that. Which reminds me, I have like 6 $10.00-$20.00 Starbucks gift cards I've accumulated from Christmasses starting in 2004!!

Gotta go get coffee! ;)

I was just at my mall's closing down and [almost] bare and empty KB Toys yesterday. I bought about $42's worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards (hey, everyone's got a vice...) since they sold them at 50% off...

In perspective, though, 50%'s nothing to laugh at.

@cynical_bastard:
If its the KB in the mall nearest to me...yet another shoe store to go along with the other 10 (not an exaggeration) already present in cambridgeside. And that's not even counting the big box and specialty stores that happen to carry shoes as well.

God I hate the cambrisdgeside galleria.

Ive heard that they could close their doors and still make a profit off their cell phone residuals for upwards of 5-6 years.

If thats true, wow!

My local mall just did the weirdest thing. About 6 years ago they renovated, turning a large block of smaller stores into an Old Navy. Ever since then, its been the Old Navy, a loooong line of empty stores, one Radio Shack and an FYE on one end of the mall, while the other end of the mall has been *mostly* full with some gaps here and there.

They just relocated the Radio Shack and the FYE to the other end of the mall - that end looks nice and full - whilst the other end of the mall is dead empty.

@cynical_bastard: If it was the mall where my parents live...nothing. It will sit there empty for the next 4 years. Then the mall manager will cut a deal with a local store to put some merchandise in the window, or it will sell Hickory Farms stuff for the month of December, or a local car dealer will put a few cars in there.

R.I.P. Kay Bee Toys.