N.J. Still Fighting to Seize Gift Card Funds

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New Jersey is STILL trying to get its grubby mitts on the leftover money on gift cards bought in that state. The state plans to appeal a ruling that struck down the law allowing it to claim "abandoned" gift card money.

State Treasurer Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff has told a U.S. District Court judge in Newark that the state will appeal a Nov. 13 ruling that temporarily struck down a new law concerning seizures that was enacted in July as part of Governor Christie's budget.
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Personally, I'll never understand why the left over money doesn't go back to the person that originally purchased the gift card in the first place.
 
I think the left over money is probably how the gift card companies profit off of that business.
 
This is hillarious how lawless government is becoming. What right do they have to decide to come in and take a third party's money? The sad thing is taxes were already paid on the money that was used to buy the gift certificate. This no different than the mafia ruffing up businesses for protection money.
 
Hallis said:
I think the left over money is probably how the gift card companies profit off of that business.
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Yes. For a while, many places even put "gift cards" on thermal receipt paper, of course due to the lack of durability. The stores offering the cards know that unused balances and lost cards benefit them. I don't think the balances should be forfeited to the state.

In California, gift cards can't expire. Stores can go out of business leaving worthless cards though (a claim can still be filed against the company in bankruptcy).
 
I think I should be able to walk through a NJ politician's house and take anything left out as "abandoned property".
 
At the end of the day though if you're a consumer does it matter if the state gets it versus the retailer? Neither one of them will return the money to you anyway.
 
kpedge said:
I think I should be able to walk through a NJ politician's house and take anything left out as "abandoned property".
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LOL

Ualdayan said:
At the end of the day though if you're a consumer does it matter if the state gets it versus the retailer? Neither one of them will return the money to you anyway.
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No, it doesn't...but we would rather get screwed by the company we willingly purchased it from than the governent that already is fail (Elephant or Donkey doesn't really matter).
 
Shocking! A bankrupt, corrupt state government is trying its hardest to get its hands on other people's money so it can continue to burn through it rather than cut spending.

I work for an internet retailer and while we do factor in unused dollars for gift card profitability we don't hope for it. It's called breakage and you don't want to see a ton of it from customers as it can be a bad reflection on your company brand.
 
Ualdayan said:
At the end of the day though if you're a consumer does it matter if the state gets it versus the retailer? Neither one of them will return the money to you anyway.
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Of course it does... this legislation also applies to things like traveler's checks. These businesses will either have to create new administrative overhead to hand over the money to the government. Some of them will throw their hands up in the air and stop selling gift cards in New Jersey. And of course it's a terrible constiutional precendent to just let the state come in and sieze private property because they can't manage their budget.
 
Guess i'm in the minority, but i'd rather the government get it then the companies who decided in the first place I have 2 years to use the card, and there's a fee for using the card, and a fee for creating the card, oh and a fee for not using the card either.
 
dopexile said:
This is hillarious how lawless government is becoming. What right do they have to decide to come in and take a third party's money? The sad thing is taxes were already paid on the money that was used to buy the gift certificate. This no different than the mafia ruffing up businesses for protection money.
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This is only a bit different than someone dying and them having no relatives or will. Where does the money go? The state seizes it, it doesn't just stay out there in limbo. Well gift cards technical are assets that legally the stores who issued have no right to, however I'm a bit confused over what gift cards they're going after (link is down), is it people who are dead with no relatives or wills? if so I can understand it. If its people who don't know, they can't just take someone's assets like this just because they didn't use them, if anything they should have to notify the owners and give them some time frame to reclaim the funds. But then again I'm from California, and as was mentioned gift cards that are purchased legally can NEVER expire.

That said, people don't pay taxes when they buy gift cards, they buy the card for an amount, if what you buy has taxes that comes from using the gift card.
 
I only give money as gifts... never understood the point to a gift card. Problem solved.
 
Cool the government is seizing private property. This will set a precedent that down the line will be great!
Sigh..
 
Seraphical said:
I only give money as gifts... never understood the point to a gift card. Problem solved.
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Sometimes a gift card for a clothing store will make someone go buy clothing as intended instead of having them blow it at a bar in one night and complaining that they are too poor and can't afford new clothes.

...and I don't think anybody should be stealing "leftover" gift card money. It should belong to the person that bought the card. Are they going to come to my house next and search my couch for loose change because I haven't spent it yet? :mad:
 
Ualdayan said:
At the end of the day though if you're a consumer does it matter if the state gets it versus the retailer? Neither one of them will return the money to you anyway.
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Well it does actually.

If the company doesn't get the extra money on the gift card, then they'll probably charge a fee for buying the card as the left over money was built into the profit of the cards.
 
It's not as if Christie doesn't already have enough money to buy a never ending supply of Big Macs for his fat face. Now he wants more?
 
This isn't a Christie thing per-se. NJ fell in love with this years ago. They seem to think if you haven't done anything with money in two years, it must be theirs.

They tried to seize my savings account because I didn't make any deposits or withdrawals in two years due to moving, changing jobs, and having to have my car's transmission rebuilt. Somehow the regularly receiving statements and collecting interest seemed to equal abandoned by their reasoning. This was long before Christie even showed up.
 
dopexile said:
This is hillarious how lawless government is becoming. What right do they have to decide to come in and take a third party's money? The sad thing is taxes were already paid on the money that was used to buy the gift certificate. This no different than the mafia ruffing up businesses for protection money.
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government believes it owns all money, they are just doing you a favor when they let you keep part of it...
 
raz-0 said:
This isn't a Christie thing per-se. NJ fell in love with this years ago. They seem to think if you haven't done anything with money in two years, it must be theirs.

They tried to seize my savings account because I didn't make any deposits or withdrawals in two years due to moving, changing jobs, and having to have my car's transmission rebuilt. Somehow the regularly receiving statements and collecting interest seemed to equal abandoned by their reasoning. This was long before Christie even showed up.
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Do you still live in NJ?
 
I'm surprised the retailers haven't fourth this harder.

Never having to give up merchandise in return for sold gift cards is part of their calculation of profitability for gift cards.

The fact that some people never redeem gift cards is what helps pay for the gift cards, the machines that read the gift cards, the management software that keeps track of the balances, etc. etc.

Without that extra money from non-redeemers, retailers may actually LOSE money by offering gift cards.

I wouldn't like this from a comsuer standpoint either.

I still have that Bob's Stores gift card one of my Aunts gave me for Xmas 10+ years ago that I keep forgetting to use... it's been in my wallet all these years waiting for me to remember to use it!
 
raz-0 said:
This isn't a Christie thing per-se. NJ fell in love with this years ago. They seem to think if you haven't done anything with money in two years, it must be theirs.

They tried to seize my savings account because I didn't make any deposits or withdrawals in two years due to moving, changing jobs, and having to have my car's transmission rebuilt. Somehow the regularly receiving statements and collecting interest seemed to equal abandoned by their reasoning. This was long before Christie even showed up.
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That's just unethical.
 
vengence said:
Do you still live in NJ?
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Unfortunately. I'm pretty solidly anchored here for the moment.

Zarathustra[H];1036660258 said:
That's just unethical.
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Not so much unethical as stupid. They wasted money on someone trying to take it. At the two year mark, I suspect the incident of success is pretty low as it isnt' that uncommon that you run into periods where you simply can't fund savings as you would like. I know I did, and I'm more frugal than a lot of people.
 
So its fine to rip people off with expiring gift cards, as long as the government gets the money. nice.
always give "universal gift card that never expires and can even buy hookers and blow" its called cash!
 
raz-0 said:
Not so much unethical as stupid. They wasted money on someone trying to take it. At the two year mark, I suspect the incident of success is pretty low as it isnt' that uncommon that you run into periods where you simply can't fund savings as you would like. I know I did, and I'm more frugal than a lot of people.
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How about anyone deployed overseas for 2 year tour of duty. If I came back from war to find my state had ursurped my funds I'd be pretty fucking pissed.
 
eh, pretty much everybody knows those gift cards become worthless over a period of time.
greatest scam ever.
 
Incredible... NJ just continuously looks like a scummy, dirtbag filled place, year after year. No offense, but that's the way it comes off, BIG TIME.
 
I personally hate that I have to drive to that state every day for work. Going over the Route 1 bridge into Trenton you can clearly see why they call it the armpit of America.
 
Wow... tons of misinformed people in this thread.

This is nothing new and in fact, a ton of states have these rules in place. Normally referred to as escheat. The basic concept is if you are a company and you sell something to someone, and they pay you, what you have sold is no longer yours. If it happens to be the case that the person you sold it to does not pick it up or whatever, it doesn't just go back to you, it goes to the state. You can argue whether it should go to the state or be burned or if it should stay with the company that sold the item. However the powers in place decided it should go to the state. I am ok with that, since states provide to charities, welfare, public at large etc.

Reading these posts it seems as if most of you think the government is going to come and ask people for their expired gift cards. Its the company's responsibility to track the gift cards they sold and how many have been redeemed. Its basic accounting, you keep a liability on your books related to these gift cards sold but have not been used to to purchase product at your stores.

You guys are directing your hatred at the government but it should be at both the government and the companies that sell these cards. If anything these cards should be sold at a discount, since they get your cash day one and people might not use them right away and some get outright lost. Yet some companies charge a damn premium to buy their cards - I can't even fathom why people buy $100 gift cards for $110. So keep in mind these companies ALREADY HAVE THE MONEY. So when the government askes them to hand over the cash related to expired gift cards, old checks that no-one ever cashed etc. ITS NOT THEIR MONEY.

Now the reason this legistlation should be chastised is because if NJ cared about its citizens, it would have taken California's approach and told these scumbag companies that if you want to sell these cards in NJ, they cannot expire. So in this regard, NJ is being its typical dirtbag self and looking to enforce a rule related to a dirty practice being used by companies.
 
This is a cash grab plain and simple, NJ politicians see a pool of money and figure they can pass a law to allow them to take it.

It sort of reminds me of something our NY's new governors father pulled when he was in office, when he pushed NY to start requiring a $0.05 deposit on carbonated beverage bottles and cans the companies complained that it would cost then a ton of money to impliment and track, so good old Mario said "Well they can keep the deposits from any unreturned bottles to that this would offset any costs and hassle of the new system."

Well as you can imagine that only lasted until Mario noticed, hey the bottlers are actually making money off the unclaimed deposits and sued them to try and force them to turn all unclaimed deposits in to NYS (so he could use it to finish destroying the state.)
 
Methadras said:
This is outright theft.
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Not that I support this at all, don't get me wrong--but it's not much different than an estate tax. When you expire, they take your funds...

Anyway, this seems a bit out of character for Christie though, he'd be one of the last governors I'd expect to see pulling some shit like this...I'm curious to see some other sources report on the issue.
 
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