Gift Card Information

A good friend of mine gave me a sad account of what happened to her son's gift card that he had received for Christmas. He was given the gift card and everything appeared to be just fine. Last Saturday, he took the two cards that he had received to a store in Garden City. The first card was accepted very easily. The second was not. Come to find out, the clerk who had sold the card had not activated it at the time of purchase. So, what he was left with was a worthless card.

It is VERY important that the clerk whom sells you the card MUST activate it BEFORE you leave the cash register. If it is not activated, the card is null and void.

If you have ever purchased gift cards such as VISA, you have probably seen that the card is worthless until you pay for it and it's authorization which is usually $4-5.00 per card. When you purchase a gift card from the company that it is to be used such as a Wal-Mart or Target card or Dollar General card, you do NOT pay the extra money for activation.

In this case, the person who purchased the card also had the receipt that proved that he had purchased it but that cannot be used in a case such as this because though the consumer purchased one card, there is no proof that he didn't steal other gift cards at the same time. The money that he had spent on the card was basically just tossed away as far as he was concerned. Of course, the business benefited!

Bottom line. Make sure that your gift cards are activated B-E-F-O-R-E you leave the checkout stand. If you are the recipient of a gift card, you might want to take it to the store where you plan on spending it and have them make sure that the card is good. It might save you some embarrassment in the long run...

VLE-B