Didn’t get that gift you wanted over the holidays? A new Web site has been launched that lets people trade or sell unwanted gift certificates they receive for Christmas.
According to news reports, an estimated $1.5-billion worth of vouchers were given as presents this year, but one in 12 people still have certificates they were given last Christmas, but have never used. Do the math: That’s a lot of unused, and essentially useless, prezzies.
The U.K.-based Unwanted Voucher Service – www.unwantedvoucher.com – aims to solve this problem by letting people sell or trade any gift vouchers they know they will never redeem. According to spokesman Dominic Keen, “We’ve all had that sinking feeling when we don’t quite get what we hoped for at Christmas time. By launching the Unwanted Voucher Service, we hope we can make things a little merrier for everyone this year.”
On the evening of Christmas Day, the site was already buzzing with Web surfers aiming to swap or sell their paper presents. The relatively low-tech service serves up a form where the type of product and its face value must be entered, along with the seller’s/trader’s contact information. The site then pledges to get back to the seller within 24 hours, claiming to usually offer between 70 and 90 per cent of the face value (or the most valuable swap option). If the seller agrees to the price or trade, they must send the site the vouchers so their validity can be checked. Then, the site sends cash, or new certificates, within seven working days.
But the site isn’t all business. The “lightbulb time” section offers tips on other ways to get that gift you really want, such as exchanging actual gifts – an ugly tie or itchy sweater, for example – for gift certificates.
A test trade of a coupon for an IBM 4341 mainframe, conducted just before Dec. 25, yielded little interest, and a follow-up swap of a certificate for $5 million in dot-com stock options has yet to elicit a response. Picky, picky…
