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The down side for companies that issue gift cards is that because they don't expire they have to wait a long time, usually 10 years, before they can declare a gift card that has not been redeemed as profit.
Until that time it is a loss for the company. With so many people buying gift cards these days and so many people never spending them it becomes difficult for medium size companies to deal with that loss on the spread sheet. How do you go to the investors and say
"Hey we sold $100,000 in gift card last month so we are $100,000 in the red and will be for the next 10 years, yea we have the money but we can't 'spend it' since it isn't 'ours." It would be much simpler if people just spent the gift cards when they got them or if people just gave cash instead of a gift card.
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