The Gift Card Business Has Scammers Too

It's a sad but true fact that every silver lining has a gray cloud, and for every good thing you find online there is almost always a dark side. It's also very true that whatever looks too good to be true usually is.

In that vein, I hope this post will save you time, trouble and heartache by bringing to your attention different online scams that have infested the gift card industry. I did some research after reading an article about the current gift card scam affecting Whole Food Market on Facebook, and lo and behold, I came up with almost 5 million hits on Google for the search term, "gift card scams."

Now that doesn't mean you should not participate in buying and selling gift cards, no how, no way! By and large, the gift card industry, which includes Mercardi.com, is super straight, reliable, dependable, and honorable. I just wanted to give you a head's up. It's like anything else online, or offline for that matter, before you dive in do your homework!

Let's Talk Seriously about Your Unused Gift Cards

I discovered a bit of truly shocking news when I read this article this morning. The gist of the article is that New Jersey is considering joining the 28 US states who are already participating in what this writer, (and this may not be the opinion of Mercardi as a whole) considers government theft, by taking over funds from retailers for unused gift cards sold to consumers. The state then invest the money and uses the interest to fund state programs and pay debts.

There may be some of you who believe in this socialistic crime, and if so I apologize if I have offended your sensibilities, but I have a strong suspicion that most readers of this blog are from the camp that believes in the division of government and business.

Either way, let's do some math. In 2009, retailers sold $90 billion in gift cards to consumers. 10% of those gift cards remain unused. Mind boggling, huh?

Just imagine what organizations like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross could do with $9 billion? We have homeless people living in the streets of America. Rather than the money from unused gift cards going to the government, just think how many people that money could house!

YOU have the power to change this scary and Animal Farmish situation. Simply find those unused gift cards that you have in your dresser drawer or your wallet, and donate them to your favorite charity. Don't let the state control your money.

Ten Little-Known Facts about Gift Cards

Just for the fun of it, below you will find interesting and/or little-known facts about gift cards. If you have a fact I've left out, by all means leave a comment and I'll add it! Have a wonderful Hump Day!

1. Gift cards are the most requested gifts of all--70% of Americans say that they would prefer a gift card as a present. Gift cards are the second most given gift.

2. Men spend more money on gift cards than women.

3. On the average, everyone in the United States has 5 unused gift cards, a total of 8 billion dollars in unused gift cards. You can sell those to Mercardi.com for up to 90% of their value.

4. The average value of a gift card is $35.

5. The gift card evolved from the paper gift-certificate, which was brought to the mass market by big department stores in the mid-1930s.

6. McDonald's began its successful Christmas gift-certificate program in 1970.

7. Gift certificates were first replaced by electronic gift certificates, or gift cards, in the mid-1990s.

8. Jennifer Pate, an economist at Loyola Marymount University, credits the Mobil Oil Company with producing “the first retail gift card that recorded value on a magnetic strip” in 1995. The card, which could be used toward gas fill-ups, was built using technology borrowed from prepaid phone cards.

9. Blockbuster is credited with pioneering the modern-day gift card, and was the first to display gift cards for sale in 1995.

10. K-Mart was the first discount retailer to join the gift card bonanza. In partnership with AT & T, the card could be used as both a gift card in the store or a calling card.

Sweepstakes and Contests Rock!

Just as we bargain hunters love free stuff and great deals, we also love to enter sweepstakes and contests. For your TGIF enjoyment, today I am listing several great sweeps or contests you'll want to enter:

Have a wonderful weekend!

For the ladies--Dove is sponsoring a sweepstakes through Sunday, April 18, 2010 in which five lucky women will women a free spa treatment gift card from Spa Week. Here is the link to enter. (Spa Week also has several other contests going on. Be sure to check those out.)

Take a short survey and be entered to win $1500 in this Spring Bloom contests!

About.Com always has comprehensive coverage of any topic and they don't disappoint when it comes to listing contests and sweepstakes. Check out this great list.

For all You Deal and Free Stuff Lovers

It's probably not a stretch of the imagination to think that if you love buying and/or selling unused gift cards with Mercardi, you also have a special place in your heart for great deals and free stuff, (us bargain lovers can usually recognize each other easily!)

So today I thought I'd turn you on to a couple of our favorite sites to find great deals and get free stuff. There are people at SlickDeals.Net who spend a majority of their time online posting and reading other posts about great deals. It is one of my all-time favorite deal sites.

JustFreeStuff.Com is by far my favorite place to find totally free stuff, such as free samples, free merchandise; really, they have so much free stuff listed it would be hard to describe it all in this post. Just sign up for their newsletter and you will get a weekly update with the links to the best free stuff online.

Here at Mercardi, being that we are in the business of saving money and bringing great gift card offers to our customers, hope these couple of great sites will supply you with some great deals and some very cool free stuff far into the future.

We like it when we can make you happy!

Mercardi, Movin' and Shakin' the Internet!

To say that things at Mercardi.com are exciting right now would be a major understatement, for although we have been around for awhile, things didn't start to really heat up until Mercardi arrived slap-dab in the middle of the information superhighway! However, unlike many fledgling businesses shooting for web stardom and finding meager results, we at Mercardi are creating fireworks, and with very good reason.

The business model of Mercardi is a win, win for both consumers and retailers. Consumers can buy unwanted gift cards from over 200 different retailers at deep discounts, creating savings for them and commerce for the companies who honor the gift cards, but that's only half the equation. Consumers can also sell their own unwanted or unused gift cards at up to 90% of the original value. Now you're probably thinking, 'yeah, and it probably takes about 6 months to get my money...there's always a catch." There you would be wrong as rain, Pardner. There truly is no 'catch,' with Mercardi, and you get your cold, hard cash in just a few days.

This is great news for everyone involved, even our frail economy!

Read this press release sent out by PRWeb about us, Mercardi the Gift Card People, and our wonderful gift card program. When you finish reading the hows, whos and whys contained in our press release be sure to check out the wheres; our website, our Facebook fan page, and of course, our Twitter page.

Take a minute to let us know what you think about Mercardi by commenting here on our blog, tweet until your hair's on fire, and join us on Facebook. Help us spread the word that is traveling like wildfire across the internet about MERCARDI.COM, but most importantly of all, get in the groove and use Mercardi to buy and sell gift cards!

Discounted gift cards + Coupon code = Double savings!

Did you know that for most retailers gift cards can be used in addition to their coupon and promotional codes? With discounted gift cards, you not only no longer need to wait for those one day sales but you can also save much more every time you shop.

Here's an example, say you have a 20% discount coupon for your favorite bookstore - Barnes & Nobles or Borders. Simply buy a discounted bookstore gift card from Mercardi at 5-10% discount and get upto a net discount of 30% intstantly!

We ran a survey last month and here are the most wanted retailers - we have them all in stock. Start saving today!

Macy's

Target

Banana Republic

Nordstrom

Starbucks

Best Buy

Walmart

Barnes and Noble

Borders

Victoria's Secret