> -----Original Message----- > From: graywolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 08 April 2006 15:55 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Rebate Offer Scumbags > > Humm..? I have never been beaten on a rebate offer. Sometimes > they were real slow, but I always got the money in the end. > > Rebates are interesting, you are actually making the company > a short term cash loan. >
gift tokens are also a form of lending money to the retailer. Sometimes it's even a gift when they don't give change on the token. The revenue from gift token sales is usually put into a suspense account, and only taken out if/when the token is redeemed. Periodically the suspense account is cleared and the unredeemed value is free money for the retailer. It can amount to a considerable sum. The retailers are not all bad, though. I used to work for a well-known department store in the mid-late 1990s. One day somebody came in with a stash of unredeemed gift tokens which had been issued in the 1920s. The man's grandmother had died, and he had found the tokens among her papers. The face value was something like £50.00. Not much in this day and age, but adjusting for inflation it came to quite a large amount. The retailer redeemed the tokens for more than their adjusted value, and use them as an exhibit in their archives. They also told the Evening Standard, who printed the story and gave the company some free publicity. Everybody happy. -- Cheers, Bob
