Gift Card MAYBE useless after Jan. 1 , a must read...

[recluse99]

I wanted to give everyone a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankrupcy Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.


Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)

JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
GAP closing 85 stores
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores &more after January

Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stor~s
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Dillard's to close some stores
Cache will close all stores

Talbot's closing down specialty stores

J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)

Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)

Footlocker closing 140 sto res mo re to close after January

Wickes Furniture closing down

Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores

Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January

Whitehall closing all stores

Piercing Pagoda closing all stores

Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.

Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Loews to close down some stores

Linens and Things closing all stores

Movie Galley Closing all stores

Pep Boys Closing 33 stores

Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores


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Hope this makes your holiday better, have a good one.

 

[holyroller]

In UK you need to add Woolworths to this list. They are currently in emergency talks to rescue them, hilco is looking to buy then, the first deal of buying them for £1 and taking on £265million of there debt has been rejected. It looks like this will be increased to taking on £300m of debt. They have 800 stores and a lot of these probably would close regardless of what happens.

If the talks fail the store will go into administration in days.

 

[NPQueen]

Well crap!! Looks like I need to go spend some gift cards quickly! Thanks for the info rep coming your way!!

 

[-REECE-]

Thanks for the info.

I'm amazed it's legal for them to be selling gift cards at this time of year, knowing full well many people will buy them as holiday gifts and not get around to using them before Jan 1st

 

[holyroller]

Thanks for the info.

I'm amazed it's legal for them to be selling gift cards at this time of year, knowing full well many people will buy them as holiday gifts and not get around to using them before Jan 1st

A lot of stores do it and not just with gift cards. The problem is, they aren't going to say we will be bust on monday, so don't buy stuff from us today. I bought some furniture once - it was saturday. The item turned out to be faulty so I phoned them up on Sunday and there was no answer, so I guessed they must be closed. Phone again monday and the line was dead, so visited the store and they were closed down. I had other items on order, I was just glad I hadn't paid in advance like some people.

 

[holyroller]

Woolworths and MFI in the UK have both now gone into administration. They will be having closing down sales pretty much immediately. Woolworths has 800 stores and employs 30,000 people.

 

[Jake]

From what I've heard, most of these stores won't be closing any more stores than they usually do.

Retail stores contantly open & close stores, so I wouldn't stress too much