Essential Things You Should Know about Gift Cards

Gift cards are valuable cards obtainable from banks, stores and high-profile retailers. As valuable items, the cards are meant to function in place of physical money for making purchases. Gift cards are otherwise called gift tokens, gift vouchers or gift certificates and they may serve as prepaid money cards for performing transactions at specific stores.

Gift cards are offered by various high-profile companies. If you happen to have heard of other types of gift cards (in addition to iTunes gift cards), chances are that you’re slightly familiar with Amazon gift cards.

Well, Amazon gift cards constitute the store cards that many people would be willing to buy. One great reason for this is that Amazon is a highly reputable e-commerce site and so, the site’s gift card is worthy of reckoning among the world’s most popular gift card types.

Selling Isn’t the Only Way to Monetize Your Gift Card

There isn’t any need stressing that selling your gift card could be your best bet at monetizing the card. However, the idea of gift card selling may prove delicate as certain people are keen to defraud you of the card or persuade you to sell it at a ridiculously low price. You’ll likely find willing buyers on Instagram, Facebook, OLX and eBay but unfortunately, some of them might be scammers looking to dispossess you of your card.

Due to the underlying risk of selling your gift card on the aforementioned platforms, you may want to exchange the card for Skrill/PayPal funds, Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.

Gift Cards Come in Categories

Gift cards can be found in various types but essentially, all types of gift cards fall under any of two categories namely (i) store cards, and (ii) cash cards

Store cards: These are well-known gift cards specifically offered by certain companies. Examples of store cards are Amazon gift cards and iTunes gift cards. While such cards usually have a validity period ranging between 30 and 90 days, it’s notable that they’re offered along with better customized gifts.
Cash cards: These are gift cards well admired for their extended degree of flexibility. Considered easily exchangeable gift cards (in return for cash), cash cards are sponsored by such notable companies as Discover, American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Interestingly, the cards are supported across many platforms for purchase purposes.

Most Gift Cards Require Activation

Frankly, activation is required for many (or majority) of the gift cards out there before such cards can prove useful. After ordering or purchasing a gift card, you may comply with the steps below to activate the card:

You’ll have to fetch the card’s activation number. This number lies beneath a sticker on the card
Having removed the sticker, you should proceed to activating the gift card. You can do this by either putting a call to the provided phone number or visiting the URL. You’ll eventually have to input the card details (activation code and identification number)

Gift Card Scams Truly Exist

Gift card scams are true to life just as the reality of crypto scams stares at us. Such scams are carried out in various ways and one common way is that of individuals parading themselves as gift card retailers.

Such people hide under the pretext of “being gift card retailers” to persuade you to make an advance payment. You’ll realize that you’ve been scammed when you notice the scammer’s failure to send you a gift card. Instead, the scammer blocks you so that you’re unable to message them again.

To avoid gift card scams, it’s advisable that if you must purchase the cards, you should do so on a reliable platform.

Gift Cards Are Beneficial in Several Ways

If you find out the decent number of benefits associated with gift cards, you may want to substitute the cards for your use of credit cards. Essentially, gift cards facilitate online payments and here are the proven benefits of the cards:

Gift cards avail buyers the opportunity of getting excellent deals
Gift cards increase in value when they are redeemed
Gift cards are essential to banks and credit card companies because they charge merchant fees for shoppers’ redemption of the cards
Stores make advance revenue through the sale of gift cards

Conclusion

Gift cards, without excepting iTunes gift cards, are great store-value cards one can use for online payments across several high-profile stores. While such cards can be alternatively exchanged for cash, it behoves anyone willing to sell their gift cards to find out the trusted platforms for doing so.