Pull out the gift cards!

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I'm thinking only that someone would actually have to organize it.

Of course, it would be overwhelming to manage. If only one out of every ten thousand US citizens sent one in annually(.01%), that would mean 30000 cards to deal with, or 82/day. And I think that's an exceptionally low figure if it got rolling.

Lots of legal and logistical issues as well. For example a gift card was purchased in AZ for $20 5 years ago, and in AZ has a 2.50 maintenance fee for non use annually, if I send it to CA is it worth 20 or 7.50? Does it matter where it is purchased and/or used?

Los of practicality issues, too.

Let's say there are 5000 Borders cards sent in with an average of 1.17 on each. I suppose negotiations would have to take place with Borders so that one gift card could be used with 5850 on it rather than 5000 individual cards. And there is the process of combining them as well in terms of transferring balances from 4999 cards to 1, assuming borders would allow it.

Hmmm.....

It would certianly require working with various vendors, but hey it's for charity what are they gonna do? Power of the press my friend power of the press...

However your point is of course valid, I did not present this as a well researched and thoughtfully designed plan. Rather it is an off the cuff comment that could be worth pursuing the details of and there would be a lot of details.

Alex: Yes, there are sure to be others. The two sites you cited seem to be looking for new cards as opposed to used ones. However it does show there is some validity to the concept.