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Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Gift Certificates - Who Knew?

Hey guys!

I've been designing some gift certificates for D Celestine Limited jewelry, and while doing some research on the subject (b/c I want to do them right), I found out an interesting piece of information I thought I'd share with you....did you know that in most states, gift certificates are not supposed to expire under a certain time period? In fact, I found one site that said that gift certificates in NC aren't supposed to expire before 3 years, and in some states they can never expire - by law! Who knew?? So, some of this information may be dated, but I would think that the current laws would be somewhat similar. Oh, and I'm definitely not an expert on this by any means, nor am I a lawyer or person involved with the government who has any authority on the subject, but the next time you find a gift certificate laying around that has "expired" - you may want to google on gift certificates and expiring because you may still be able to use it! I think the laws vary for different types of gift certificates (retail, restaurant, etc.), different states, and some companies may be able to sneak their way around this by calling their "gift certificates" by a different name, but this is definitely something to keep in mind!

Here's an article from Wikipedia on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_certificate

Here's an aritcle about consumer protection and gift cards: http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=1800

Here's a blog that has a list of states and their laws (although I think the laws may be from 2003): http://o2b.net/archives/gift-certificates-the-gift-that-goes-away/





By the way, DCL is now offering gift certificates for purchase. Also, keep an eye out for any contests on the blog for your chance to win a free DCL gift certificate!

:-) Diana

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