One of the most common problems that people deal with these
days is how to make effective use of gift cards. Among the most common items
purchased as gifts and given as rewards, literally hundreds of retailers are
offering gift cards for use in their own or multiple stores, and as a country
it has been reported that well over a billion dollars of value has gone unspent
in the United States due to being locked into gift cards. Major players have
even entered the arena, with many credit card companies offering prepaid gift
cards for sale in large retailers such as Visa’s Vanilla prepaid gift card,
American Express prepaid gift cards, and more. While similar to a prepaid debit
card, these gift cards differ in that they often do not permit a cash
withdrawal from an ATM, and therefore usually must be spent on a purchase.
Many websites and services that offer rewards for use, such
as Swagbucks, Perk, and Google Screenwise Trends make gift cards more easily
accessible than cash or cash equivalent payments, so that people that use their
services are able to get a greater dollar value of gift cards for a retailer or
restaurant than they are of PayPal or Payza payments. This often leads people
to have a greater access to gift cards than money.
In any case, regardless of how you acquired your gift card,
you are likely interested in converting it into cash. Luckily, there are a
number of easy and straightforward methods for accomplishing this, if you are
willing and able to make use of the services that I will describe below.
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Selling the Card to Coinstar
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If you have never seen the large green Coinstar machines
in a grocery store or local business, Coinstar operates machines that accept
loose change and offer a cash voucher that can be redeemed at the checkout
counter for real money. These days, taking your change in to the Coinstar
machine is a quick and easy way to get bills in your hand, without the hassle
of having to count and wrap the coins yourself and take them into the bank. Although
this service comes at a price, around 9% of the value of the coins, the
convenience and speed are worth the price for many people, and it’s not
uncommon to see people with jars of change cashing in for anything from a few bucks
to hundreds of dollars. What a lot of people are not aware of is that Coinstar
machines will now accept a number of gift cards for major retailers, and give
you a certain percentage of the value of the gift card as a cash voucher that
can be redeemed at the checkout counter.
This service, called Coinstar Exchange, allows you to scan or even swipe
your gift card at a kiosk and trade it in for a cash voucher. At this point,
over 150 retailers are being accepted, and there are probably going to be even
more in the future! While there is little chance that you will get the full
cash value of the gift card, you will at least get something, and it is nice to
have cash in hand instead of waiting for a PayPal transaction to clear, check
to arrive in the mail and be deposited, or any other option.
Just so you know, Coinstar Exchange requires sellers to verify their
identity before selling the card, which means you need to provide a phone
number, photo ID, credit or debit card, and email address when you redeem your
cash voucher at the register.
·
Selling a Gift Card Online
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There are a lot of options for selling a gift
card online, and many different websites that you can use to do it.
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Craigslist allows you to make a post to sell
pretty much whatever you would like, and for many that constitutes an open
license to sell unwanted or unused gift cards. People selling gift cards on
Craigslist can sell a physical gift card or a gift card code, and are free to
ask for any form of payment that they desire, whether it is cash, a check, a
money order or even another gift card or a service like mowing the lawn. You
can often get up to the full value of the gift card when selling on Craigslist,
if you are patient and are willing to meet with the buyer, but you are more
likely to make a quick sale if you offer your card for a lowered price, so that
the buyer feels like he or she is getting a deal.
o
Ebay allows sellers to sell a gift card. You are
able to sell the physical card with delivery through the mail, or the numerical
code from the card just by sending the image of the front and back of the card
through an email to the buyer.
Ebay is a great way to get money from an e-gift card, which is usually
intended for use online and is often delivered without a physical card at all,
only a claim code. The only thing that you must be careful about is taking pictures of your card, you cannot
expose the numbers on the card or the card’s value could be claimed by people
before the card has been purchased.
Many people are willing to purchase a gift card on Ebay for close to face
value, especially if they are for in-demand places like Starbucks and Target.
While a person’s motivation for doing so likely varies, some conjecture that
they are purchasing with a rewards credit card anyway, so anything that is
bought comes with a certain amount of cash back.
A key drawback is that it takes a long time to receive the money from a
gift card sale, which can be a problem if you “need cash now”.
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Gift Card selling sites
There are a number of gift card buying and selling sites online, which
either act as marketplaces for a gift card to be bought and sold directly by
individuals, or act as intermediates and buy unwanted gift cards at a fixed
price and sell them at a slightly higher fixed price to people who are looking to
buy gift cards. Rates are highly variable between these sites, and while it is
possible to approach full face value with compensation rates of up to 90% for
certain cards on certain sites, the amounts paid will differ depending on the
time of year, level of demand for the card that you have, and interestingly the
face value of the card. The methods of payment vary, with some sites offering a
little bit more for each card being sold if you opt to receive a check in the
mail versus an instant PayPal payment, and other sites offering different
rates, as well as the policies in place regarding physical gift cards versus
e-gift cards.
·
Selling the Gift Card to a Pawn Shop
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Many pawn shops now will purchase gift cards for
major and local stores, to be sold out of the shop to other customers. The
amount offered by the pawn shop will vary store to store and card to card, and
will likely depend on what the store employee believes that the card can be
easily sold for.
The primary upside to selling a gift card to a pawn shop is the ability
to get cash immediately, without the work of trying to find a buyer, and
without the burden of verifying your identity with a Coinstar machine.
The primary downside is that the store may give you a low offer, and
there is no guarantee that the pawn shop will take your gift card at all.
·
Trading your Gift Card for Other Gift Cards
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There are a number of ways to trade a gift card
for another gift card. One is to advertise that you are interested in doing so
on Craigslist or in the local classifieds, which would either be free in the
former case or of minimal cost in the latter, but another way would be to use a
Gift Card Exchange. There is a thriving community on Reddit.com of individuals
willing to trade gift cards for other gift cards, often at equal value or rates
approaching equal value, and while it might take a bit of time, it is possible to
get the full face value of your card in the form of another card.
Since many of the people trading gift cards are interested in a quick
sale, there is often a discount applied to the asking price, and it’s not
impossible to get even more value than your card’s face value in exchange,
especially if you have a gift card for a retailer or restaurant that is in
demand.
You are free to request any form of payment in exchange for your gift
card, including a different kind of gift card, cash, or cryptocurrency on a
forum based exchange, but at the same time there is a chance that nobody is
interested in your offer.
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Offering to Pay for the Purchases of Others
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While not usually the fastest way to liquidate
your gift cards, when you offer to pay or shop for other people and just have
them give you cash in exchange, you can get 100% of your face value of the
card, and you get to assist someone at the same time. This method is long
honored, and goes back to the days when gift cards were unheard of and gift
certificates were common.
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