Prepaid, Gift, and Store Cards

Prepaid, gift, and store-card terms describe stored-value products and merchant credit arrangements that are funded or issued before purchase redemption. This branch covers gift card, prepaid card, and store credit.

Use these pages when the balance, issuer, merchant restriction, fee schedule, redemption rule, or customer-protection question affects payment value.

What This Branch Covers

Decision Lens

Start with who issued the value and where it can be used. Bank-issued prepaid cards, retailer gift cards, and store credit can differ in redemption rights, fees, expiration rules, and accounting treatment.

Evaluation Checklist

• Identify the issuer, purchaser, holder, merchant or network, stored value, purchase date, fees, expiration terms, and redemption record.
• Separate prepaid-card balance, gift-card value, store-credit liability, refund credit, and promotional credit.
• Check receipts, cardholder agreements, balance records, merchant terms, redemption history, and customer notices.
• Review whether the product changes liquidity, breakage, refund handling, customer rights, or merchant liability.
• Treat legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, and consumer-rights conclusions as professional-advice areas.

Common Mistakes

• Treating store credit as cash.
• Ignoring expiration, inactivity fees, and merchant restrictions.
• Assuming prepaid cards and gift cards have the same protection rules.
• Reviewing balances without issuer records and redemption history.

In this section

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