Tag: unused giftcards

I’ve been covering unclaimed money for years and whenever I searched for
myself I wouldn’t find anything. I always thought, that’s me, way too anal to lose track of any of my money! But it’s a good idea to check back every year or so
and I did just that when I was preparing to launch this podcast and talk about unclaimed money every week. Sure enough, I am owed unclaimed money from
ticketmaster gift certificates I purchased for somebody that they never used.
I’m super curious which one of my friends or family is so lame that they didn’t manage to go see a concert or a show —on me— with the gift card I gave them.

But, somebody missed out and now I can reclaim that money if I want. In fact, if my recipient now tries to use their gift card, they will find that it is no longer valid because the District of Columbia is holding the money for me.
Not every state requires merchants to turn over unused money from gift cards,
and some states only force them to do this if the gift card has an expiration date. I counted and about a quarter of states now seize gift card money as unclaimed money. Here is a link to the entire list of states that seize unused gift cards as unclaimed money.

Meanwhile, some advice: The only reason I can get my gift card money back is
that I bought the gift cards online, so Ticketmaster had my name and address. If you buy a gift card in a store, there may not be a record. However, most gift cards give you a way of registering the purchase online, which is also smart in the event of fraud, so you might want to take a couple of minutes and do that.

Sometimes recipients register themselves as the owners of gift cards and, in that case, recipients may be able to make a claim as well. But regardless, unused gift cards are yet another reason to search for unclaimed money. And, as always, the best places to check are MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org. Again, .org. Let me know if you find anything and maybe I’ll interview you on Easy Money!