Better use for your gift-card balances than companies
By Suresh Chanmugam / For The Herald
Washington is home to some of the biggest industry leaders in the world; from coffee to high tech. As a part of the tech boom in Washington, I believe our state’s corporations have a responsibility to keep up with technological advances; especially around gift cards.
Most enormous retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot are required by their states of incorporation to return unspent balances on gift cards and mobile apps to consumers through the state’s unclaimed property system. Consumers can search for their unspent gift cards and other unclaimed property across all states at MissingMoney.com.
Millions of consumers, however, are unable to recover their unspent balances on gift cards issued by Starbucks or Nordstrom. That’s because 20 years ago Starbucks and other corporations pushed for a loophole to allow them to keep a customer’s unspent gift card or mobile app balance without providing that customer with a product or service.
This outdated law incentivizes companies to count on consumers to lose or forget about their gift cards or mobile app funds. In a complaint to the Washington state Attorney General, consumers accuse Starbucks of rigging its payment app with “dark patterns” to drive them into loading more money than they want to spend. In the last five years alone, Starbucks has claimed $894 million of customers’ unspent gift cards as corporate revenue, which can also inflate executive bonuses.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-better-use-for-your-gift-card-balances-than-companies/