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Comment by thrower123 | Hacker News Reader

I hate gift cards. "Here, rather than crassly giving you actual money, I've spent that money on this company scrip that you can only use in one place. Aren't you excited?" Great idea, just brilliant. I'll add it to the stack of worthless iTunes cards and cards for restaurants that don't have a franchise within 500 miles...

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Uh. So... those ‘worthless iTunes cards’; you wouldn’t be interested in, say, me sending you a self addressed, prestamped box, & you sending back those cards?

It’s the thought that counts.

totally agree with you. And some visa gift cards charge you monthly fee after activating them!! I had few cards that I forgot to use, and their value became $0 after a year. And I am also concerned about the environmental damage caused by millions of plastic gift cards.. all the way from sourcing, manufacturing, transporting and disposing them. And to certain extent, it forces over-consumption behavior. I got 2 kids, and always got too many BabysRus/ToysRus gift cards. I am either forced to use them or re-gift/exchange them with others. In the end, the cards always get used by either myself or the others. If unavoidable, then you can at least print/send an e-gift card.

If it's plain cash, I can just deposit them without buying anything. For these reasons, I always wrap cash in an envelope with a personal hand-written note. Have been gifting this way to teachers, postmen, home-cleaners and no one has complained so far. When my friends/colleagues try to gift for any occasion, I always encourage them to gift cash.

> to certain extent, it forces over-consumption behavior

isn't gift giving itself over-consumption? at least among peers, the other person would have just gotten the item themselves if they actually needed it.

> When my friends/colleagues try to gift for any occasion, I always encourage them to gift cash.

presumably you exchange gifts with these people on some sort of regular basis. if so, isn't this just a net zero transfer? may as well just not give gifts.

I could remember wrong but I don't think prepaid cards are allowed to charge fees like that anymore. It's why the up front cost of a prepaid Visa loaded with $50 is now more than $50, when it didn't used to be

I'll buy all your gift cards for 50% of their value.

Gift giving is more than just empty cash transfers.

You could level your hate at anything. "Great, mom. Now I'm stuck playing with this one corporation's toy instead of having the cash to buy whatever I want. Ugh, I hate it!"

It makes you sound ridiculous.

Gift cards can be a reasonable gift. For example, you know someone likes hiking etc. and buys gear at $OUTDOOR_STORE but you really don't know what they want/need. But on the whole they're a bit of a scam based on what's mostly a relatively upper class attitude, at least on the US, about giving cash as a gift.

cash is a pretty terrible gift for people who give each other presents on a regular basis, unless the relationship is not reciprocal. if you and your friend just give each other $50 on Christmas, it's sort of pointless. if you give your friend a $50 gift card, now they have to go get themselves something nice that they wouldn't have purchased otherwise.

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