Are Gift Cards Going Away In New Jersey?

You might have to buy someone an actual gift soon instead of a gift card.

I'm bothered by this gift card controversy in New Jersey. In case you have only heard bits and pieces of the story (like me), here's what's going on.  New Jersey has an unclaimed property law that says after two years, the state can (will) take the unredeemed funds on a gift card. So, if you get a gift card for your birthday and you lose track of it, the state will take your birthday present if you don't use it in two years.

So far, three large gift card companies have, or will, stop doing business in New Jersey instead of trying to comply with this law. If this trend continues, we might have to go back to buying people actual gifts.

I don't know if I can handle that.

You're probably just like me. You have to go to an event in a few weeks -- for example, someone's birthday party or something. You forget about it (or maybe you just don't like that person but you have to go anyway even though you would rather stay home and watch TV on a Saturday afternoon because, after all, what has that person done for me lately and it's too late to fake an illness or household emergency) and now you have to be at the party in 30 minutes. What do you do? You run into CVS, bee-line to the gift card end-cap, find something that person might have a little bit of interest in ("I thought you might really enjoy the chicken bacon ranch quesadillas at Chili's, so I got you this gift card...") put it inside a greeting card, get to the party, and you're all set.

Now what am I supposed to do? Without being able to buy gift cards, I'm going to have to put thought into a gift. And planning. And even worse -- I might have to wrap something.  Well, gift bags and tissue paper aren't illegal in New Jersey.  Yet.

Don't the politicians in Trenton have anything better to do then to mess with the only way guys can participate in gift giving?