[discostu]

The expire them because gift cards are a bookkeeping nightmare (trying to keep track of all the accounts and their balances), and more importantly a liability (you now owe product to somebody) and nobody wants to carry more liability than they have too. It's not greedy it's just sensible, any gift card that hasn't been used for two years (the standard time when the rot starts) was probably lost entirely and will never get used, dump the bookkeeping, dump the liability, and move on.

[bimbo]

The expire them because gift cards are a bookkeeping nightmare (trying to keep track of all the accounts and their balances), and more importantly a liability (you now owe product to somebody) and nobody wants to carry more liability than they have too.

I cannot disagree, but that leaves this question out there: why do they push the use of these cards so heavily?

[Vigilanteman]

Every business of any size carries an "Allowance for Doubtful Accounts" to cover accounts receivable which might not get paid. It takes a mere similar amount of work to cover old gift cards which might get redeemed.

The proof is that there are more than a few businesses which offer gift cards with no expiration dates. Staples is one and, as such, I buy and gift their cards without reservation.

I stand by my statement that businesses with expiring gift cards are greedy-- they are getting something of value up front and then taking it away in what may or may not be a reasonable time frame.

Yeah, in the list of irritations, this type of greed ranks well behind the government thinking they own it, but it is greed nevertheless. By engaging in this type of greedy activity, businesses condone and invite government intervention and, therefore, a "solution" which is worse than the problem. Businesses who have their workers labor under unsafe conditions, do not deliver a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and concentrate on what they can legally get away with rather than what's morally right do likewise.

Conservatives need to be equally loud in advocating ethical behavior among businesses as they do among governments. Winking at, nodding at and excusing unethical business behavior empowers liberals to apply their phony solutions with the iron fist of government which, coincidentally, always result in problems worse than what they set out to cure. I'm reasonably sure that the gentleman who's birthday we celebrate today would agree.

[no-s]

double that. It's a total PITA to keep gift card liability on the books. Gift cards do have marketing virtue, so there is a reason other than collecting the free money from non-redeemers. Turning abandoned gift cards into unclaimed property is probably the fairest deal - and gets them off the books (and you get to use the cash interest free until you turn it over to the state, hey!).