An estimated $570 billion is loaded onto gift and prepaid cards each year in the United States
Holy crap, I had no idea that so many people buy these stupid things. My mother used to buy them. She’d give Visa $5 in order to give me a $100 gift card. I told her she was wasting her money and she should just write me a check but she just kept doing it.
Based on the fee schedule at this site, that 5% fee is normal. That means these companies are making $28.5 billion per year providing no useful service at all.
Starbucks had 1.2 billion USD held on Starbucks cards/the app back in 2016, “enough to be a midsize bank,” and I can only imagine it’s gone up since.
$1.2 billion would be a very small bank. But also, that money is not able to be used by Starbucks. It’s not “earned” yet. I don’t know the details on what they can invest it in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it has to just sit in a bank account earning very little.
Even a small bank would be able to invest the money much better.
If I can make an assumption; it’s your fault. I’m just trying to gift you something you’ll appreciate. Can’t you help with sone sort of wish list or favorite store? I know gift cards are a ripoff but no one uses checks anymore and without any constraints I have no reasonable way to gift you something you’d appreciate
The government should consider printing some sort of paper voucher as a representation of money to be used in instances such as this. /s
I do remember such a thing from decades ago, but haven’t seen anything like that in years. Do people still use it? Do i need to goto some sort of museum? Can I use it online or from my phone?
