Along the way, we bought the story that giving someone a hundred dollar bill as a gift ("go buy what you want") is callous, insensitive, a crass shortcut. Buying them a $100 Best Buy card, on the other hand, is thoughtful. Even if they spend $92 and have to waste the rest.
The interesting thing about stories is that the inconsistent ones don't always hold up to scrutiny. Consumer Reports and others are trying to spread a different story. One that sounds like this:
Gift cards are for chumps.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Gift Cards: the scam that keeps on taking
Back in September I had a short piece on gift cards. Today on Seth Godin's blog he calls it the "$8 billion story/scam":
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3 comments:
I'm returning all the gift cards I bought for you this year!
Just send me a $100 bill.
Make sure it's not $100US. It's worth about as much as a gift card!
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