Gift cards make great stocking stuffers — just as long as you don’t stuff them in a drawer and forget about them after the holidays.
Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales.
Most of those gift cards will be redeemed. Paytronix, which tracks restaurant gift card sales, says around 70% of gift cards are used within six months.
But many cards — tens of billions of dollars’ worth — wind up forgotten or otherwise unused. That’s when the life of a gift card gets more complicated, with expiration dates or inactivity fees that can vary by state.
How so? People laundering money aren’t going to wait that long for clean funds ignoring the obvious issues with then attempting to refund cash to fake names and addresses because if the so called launderers used their real info it would be too easy to prosecute them.
Long story short, this would be the most inefficient way to clean cash.