Holiday Gift Card Warning

This holiday season I’ve decided that I am going to try and entirely avoid gift cards. I want to give people gifts which are a little more thought out. While I acknowledge that gift cards allow the recipient to have their own choices in what specific gift they want, I don’t really feel that gift cards fulfill the true intention of what a gift should be. Sure there’s some cases where giving a gift card is really the only way to ensure that the person gets what they truly need, but in that case I’d rather just let them get that item on their own. Many gift cards expire after a certain amount of time passing with out use. Some states have laws which prevent this practice, but even in those cases there is a service fee charged for the time passed where the card is not used. On top of everything else, it’s important to take the recent change in our economy into consideration and look at a companies future. No one wants a gift card to a store who has gone out of business. Recently I had an email passed onto me from a friend which really opened my eyes to this.

Here’s a heads up in case you intend to give gift cards around the holidays. Be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as ‘Bankruptcy Planning). So take a look at this partial list of stores that you should be cautious about.

Circuit City (filed

Chapter 11)

Ann Taylor–
117 stores nationwide closing 

Lane Bryant,
Fashion Bug, & Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide 

Eddie Bauer to
close stores 27 stores and more after January 

Cache will
close all stores 

Talbot’s closing
down specialty stores 

J. Jill closing
all stores (owned by Talbot’s) 

Pacific
Sunwear (also
owned by Talbot’s) 

GAP closing
85 stores 

Footlocker closing
140 stores, more to close after January 

Wickes
Furniture closing
down 

Levitz closing
down remaining stores

Bombay closing
remaining stores 

Zales closing
down 82 stores and 105 after January 

Whitehall closing
all stores 

Piercing
Pagoda closing
all stores 

Disney Store closing
98 stores and will close more after January. 

Home Depot closing
15 stores

Macy’s to
close 9 stores after January 

Linens and
Things closing
all stores 

Movie Galley Closing
all stores 

Pep Boys
Closing 33 stores 

Sprint/Nextel closing
133 stores 

JC Penney closing
a number of stores after January 

Ethan Allen closing
down 12 stores. 

Wilson
Leather closing
down all stores 

Sharper Image closing
down all stores 

K B Toys closing
356 stores 

Lowes to
close down some stores 

Dillard’s to
close some stores