A blog post at Banktalk.org speculated that more states will follow the example set by New Jersey and seek to change their unclaimed property laws to claim more funds from unused gift cards:
Nonetheless, more states are looking at escheat with newly found interest. New York, Texas, Illinois, Nevada, and Michigan all have passed bills in the last few years to reduce the dormancy period for some types of property.
In a related vein, some states are identifying unused cash rebates and promotional incentives for the same purpose. According to a report from Alston & Bird, hundreds of millions of dollars of rebates and incentives go unclaimed every year. To the earlier point that the pushback in New Jersey is unlikely to close the issue, it is important to realize that many of those unclaimed rebates are stored on prepaid cards.
So far, no state has passed any law that comes close to New Jersey’s bill to require the collection of zip codes on every gift card purchase while reducing the amount of time that passes before the card is deemed abandoned. In addition, the post implies that the law would have only applied to open-loop cards. However, the law would have applied to all gift cards.
Although there have been no additional laws, nonetheless, the industry needs to be on alert for additional laws of this type.
Click here to read more from Banktalk.
