We’ve all gotten gift cards for a birthday or holiday gift…. well I apparently have a bank of them. I get so excited whenever I receive a gift card and then put it in my special envelope (bank) of gift cards so I won’t forget where I put it. Funny thing is I DO forget that I put it there. I’ll go shopping at the store(s) in which I’ve received a gift card for with out remembering I have FREE money to use at that store. Doh!  Well I recently found this envelope of gift cards and went to each website to check the balance on each card. Some were $0.00 sadly… but some DID have money! This is like the feeling you get whenever you find old birthday cards with cash still in them, or money in the pocket of your jacket that you haven’t worn for a year. Good feeling.  However, it is NOT a good feeling whenever a gift card DEPRECIATES in value. That is the stupidist thing I’ve ever heard of. In fact, it inhibits me from purchasing gift cards for folks in the future.

For example, My aunt purchased two $100 Visa All Access gift cards for my college graduation gift ( in May 2007).  Like I said, I used to be bad about using up the gift cards…
I always see these cards hanging in my face at the check-out aisles at Wal-Mart and various grocery stores and always thought they were such a great idea – a prepaid gift card to be used anywhere.  Well, I’ve tried using these said gift cards at two locations on two different days and they would not “go through.”  Hmmm.. that’s weird, I thought. The expiration date says 11/09… I haven’t even tried to use them yet- there’s no way they’re bad.  Today I called the “All Access Visa Gift Card” customer service guys (the number on the back of the cards.)  Thankfully, they were quick to connect me to a human. However, I was not entirely happy with this human. He said EACH of my $100 gift cards had depreciated over time… which consisted of $4.37 credits (taken away from my card) that occurred 7 times over the past 1.5 years because of the “no activity.” So, now my cards are worth $64 each, because he added a courtesy $14 to each.  Gee, thanks sir for adding back on the money that was originally purchased to be spent on this card. Damn you VISA!  “All Access”- my butt! OH- and they locked my cards to begin with- without giving me any knowledge of this. Thank you sucky cards. I will never purchase these as gifts for anyone in the future. I tried quizzing the man on the logic of charging people for not using their card in a certain period of time… he wasn’t too happy and just spouted off a bunch of BS.. then told me I must use my cards by the end of the month before they charge me, yet again. How lovely.

Moral of the story: DON’T PURCHASE ALL ACCESS VISA GIFT CARDS…. unless they will be used within 30 days or less.