Martin Lewis is urging shoppers not to buy gift cards this Christmas because of the risk you’ll be left with ‘worthless’ vouchers.
The money saving expert has issued a missive against gift cards, gift vouchers and gift certificates et al as people start to turn their attention to Christmas shopping.
On the latest episode of The Martin Lewis podcast, Martin heard from a woman who told him her worst Christmas financial mistake was when she was left out of pocket because she was gifted Woolworths vouchers for Christmas.
Martin said: “For some reason our British sensibilities struggle with giving cash, with many finding gift vouchers more socially acceptable.
“But there are bigger buts on gift vouchers than a troupe of baboons.”
Martin explained that if a retailer goes into financial difficulty, the cards are usually worth nothing.
And of course if retailers are struggling, January is usually the month they enter administration – just after Christmas when you have vouchers to use.
Martin continued: “First of all, if the store goes bust, I’ll be very plain on this, gift vouchers usually become worthless. So think very carefully about the likely financial strength of any retailer you’re buying for.
“Now let’s be honest if you buy an Amazon gift voucher, it probably ain’t going bust any time soon, nor is Selfridges, but there are many retailers especially high street retailers and we’ve seen this lots of times.
“The second thing to be aware of with gift vouchers is that many have expiry dates which you might not be aware of so they only last a couple of years.
“Now even if you’re getting to that point what you can do is go in and buy the cheapest thing you possibly can if you’re near the expiry date and then you’ll get another gift voucher that has a much longer expiry date on the back.
“But if in doubt cash, or money in the bank is the ultimate gift voucher. It’s totally flexible and you can use it anywhere.”
