Many people with an unused balance on a gift card have found a way to sell it for cash online. Every name brand store has gift cards that people can buy and give as a gift, but the actual store won’t redeem the balance for cash, ever.
With a little bit of persistence and online searching you can in fact find companies that will give you cash for gift cards. The card will usually need to have at least $25 worth of spending power on it though.
Can you get cash for the full value of the card?
It is also important to realize that the companies that buy and sell gift cards in this way won’t give you the full value of whatever balance you have left on there. When you sell your card to them they will make you a cash offer for somewhat less than what there is left to spend on the card. This is their business model and how they make money.
Can you get more money for name brand gift cards?
If you have a very popular name brand gift card you will get a better offer as they know they can resell it quickly to someone else at a profit. When you visit one of these sites (such as Plastic Jungle.com where you can save up to 35% or sell your gift card and get up to 92% ) you will see what kinds are the most popular. If you happen to have one of the most popular ones you can literally get instant cash put into your Paypal account.
What about lesser known gift cards?
For the lesser known cards you usually will have to mail them in to the company. They will then check the balance available on the card and then email you an offer. If you accept what they are offering they will then send you a check for what you agreed upon.
Many people have left over balances that they know they will never use and just put the card away in their top dresser drawer and forget about it. It has been estimated that there is over one billion dollars of unspent buying power just sitting on these gift cards.
The unfortunate reality is that much of this money will never get spent because there is maybe five or ten dollars left on the card and it is not worth a trip to the store to cash it in for merchandise. The other sad fact is that until there is a company that can figure out how to make money buying and selling these cards with less than a twenty five dollar balance on them, that money is likely to never get spent.
