Congress Extends Transition Deadline for Gift Card Rules

With a resounding "Yay!" I post today about one of the smartest things Congress has done in a very long time. They passed the ECO-Gift CARD Act, which will avoid the destruction of over 100 million plastic cards, ensuring that consumers can access these cards during the busy holiday shopping season.

"The act extends the August 22nd gift card implementation deadline, as mandated by Federal Reserve regulations pursuant to the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, to Jan. 31, 2011. This would allow the industry to sell existing gift cards, gift certificates, store gift cards and general-use prepaid cards produced prior to April 1, 2010."

This is a reason for celebration not just for retailers but for consumers as well. So let's raise a hearty cheer of "Great!!, knowing that we can shop this coming holiday season without interruption. At a time when we are having so many second doubts about the actions of government, it is really refreshing to run across news like this.

Here is the full article from PRNewswire.com.

Helpful Sites for Gift Card Users

I was really excited this morning when, via the comment section of a New York Times article I was reading about how consumers should not hold on to gift cards, but spend them, or--as we here at Mercardi.com like to suggest, sell them--when I discovered a new gift card watchdog site called Scrip Smart.

Here is the latest blog post from Scrip Smart, advising consumers about the new laws that will go into affect in August, 2010, protecting them from losing the value of their unspent gift cards. This site is all about keeping up with the laws involving gift cards and also letting you know about businesses that may be closing their doors that you may very well be holding a gift card for and need to redeem, and they even have a free program that let's you list the gift cards you have and will send you an alert when that card is about to expire.

As I was checking out Scrip Smart I also ran across another gift card watchdog site called Gift Card Advocate.Org. This site makes it their job to keep up with impending bankruptcies of businesses that you may hold a gift card for, legal info, tips for gift card buyers and sellers, gift card scams, and more.

Sites like this are worth their weight in gold for the gift card industry and the consumers like you who buy and sell gift cards, so check them out and bookmark them. Tell them Denise from MERCARDI.COM sent you!