When is a $50 gift voucher not a $50 gift voucher? When you don’t read the fine print.
Gift vouchers; they’re pretty handy things (read: acceptable gift for someone who is too hard to buy for, or when you don’t know exactly what they could do with). When friends of ours had a baby recently we decided that a gift voucher to purchase baby related stuff would be a good idea.
We have found that the baby clothes at Target are fairly priced and of a decent quality so we went there and looked at a stand of cards, coming across the one pictured below. It’s a $50 prepaid Target Visa debit gift card and, as it’s a debit card, can be used in any store that accepts Visa. I was close to grabbing it and taking it to the registers for authentication when I read the fine print. Apart from the fact it expires in only eight months, the “card purchase fee” is nearly 12% of the value of the card. I left it on the stand, right below the sign that says: “Target. Get more. Pay less.”
A couple of metres further away was another stand with more cards on it, including standard Target gift cards (valid only in Target stores but expiring a full two years after purchase). For $50 you get $50 worth.
Just goes to show that you should always read the fine print.