The relative explosion in the popularity of gift cards around the country has led to a number of differentsecondary markets for cards consumers want to sell.
|According to one, CardHub.com, consumers purchased almost $28 million in giftcards over the 2011 holiday season and an estimated $41 billion ingift card balances have gone unredeemed since 2005.
|This has created a secondary market for gift cards amongconsumers that want to buy and sell them. CardHub claims to be theonly gift card exchange in the nation that allows consumers to sellor swap any gift card regardless of brand or store affiliation.
|While many people simply don't know that you can sell unwantedgift cards online for cash, others are discouraged from doingbecause their card is not affiliated with a major national retailerand therefore will not be accepted by an online gift cardexchange.
|Or they used some of the card's funds and an unusualdenomination remains. Or they have store credit instead of anactual gift card or they don't want to give up any value to middlemen, explained CardHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou.
|Papadimitriou said people might also want to re-gift them, swapthem, sell them to pay down debt or donate them to charity.
|“According to Card Hub's latest study, U.S. consumers wereprojected to end 2011 with roughly $64 billion more credit carddebt than they began it with. Every little bit counts when itcomes to paying down what we owe, which means that the $41 billionthat U.S. households have in unused gift cards would sure come inhandy,” Papadimitriou added.
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