Average Person has $244 in Unused Gift Card Money
Remember that gift card you got for Christmas from your Grandma that's just sitting in your kitchen drawer with your scissors? It's for a store that you have never even heard of. The nearest location is 4 hours into Massachusetts, and guess what? Their website is from 2007.
Owner of a lonely card...
There it sits. A sad piece of plastic next to the other one from last year with a remaining balance of $4.62. Not enough on there to use it for anything so it either gets thrown out, forgotten in a junk drawer, or shoved to the deep recesses of your wallet.
This is the fate of millions of gift cards each year, and the amount of money simply forgotten or tossed in the trash may surprise you.
Billions?
With the amount of gift cards that go unused each year, the value of them could be in the billions of dollars. Yes, Billions. With a capital B.
The New York State Comptroller's office recovered $21 million in unused gift cards at the end of 2024. State officials say if the gift cards aren't used in the first five years of purchase, the funds get returned to the state! That's just in New York...
According to Bankrate.com, 43% of Americans have at least one gift card, gift voucher, or store credit that they haven't used.
Why is this?
A myriad of reasons. Sometimes the store is inconvenient to get to, or it's a store that you don't particularly like. People even put their gift cards aside for special occasions, oftentimes getting forgotten. Inflation is another reason why people aren't using their gift cards. It doesn't have the same value as it did a couple years ago, so what's the point?
It's Free Money
Ted Rossman is a senior analyst for bankrate.com and creditcards.com, and told CNN it's "unwise" to ignore the gift of free money.
"They’re not going to get more valuable over time; it’s the exact opposite, as inflation eats away at the value. And the longer you hold onto these unused gift cards, the more likely you are to lose them or forget about them or have the store go out of business,” said Rossman.
In addition to inflation depreciating the value, some Visa, Mastercard, and American Express gift cards add penalties if they aren't used in a specific time frame.
Good news? Chariot's A-comin'?
There is a federal law that states a gift card cannot expire until at least 5 years after the card was activated, and there is a limit to the fees that the company can charge the aforementioned cards.
If you have absolutely no use for a gift card you received, there are several websites where you can sell or exchange them, like cardcash.com and gcx.com
Take time to look around your house for some old gift cards. You might be sitting on more money than you think... or maybe it's $1.18 on a Dunkin gift card you got in 2016...