British Columbia Protected Gift Card owners last year

April 9th 2008 was the day that legislation passed in British Columbia to end all expiration dates for Gift cards. This closed the largest loophole in gift cards in B.C. for good. The Gift Card Certainty law goes beyond eliminating expiration dates it also eliminates merchants abilities to levy fees on the gift cards for non-use.

The consumer protection agency of Canada had guessed that over one billion dollars anually had been lost by people letting gift cards languish and then expire. Certainly eliminating the expiration dates for gift cards will not insure that they are all redeemed. Some gift cards simply get lost or tucked too far back in the shirt drawer or deep in the purse. But this law will take a bite out of the 1 billion being lost.

We salute B.C. for this landmark legistlation last year here at GiftCertificateGuide and we hope all states and provinces will soon follow suit. There is no reason that merchants should be able to place an expiration date on gift cards regardless of how complicated it becomes for their accounting team. They should hire smarter nubmers people if they need to.