The Sharper Image, the original yuppie toy store, has filed for bankruptcy.
This is not particularly remarkable. The Gordon Gekkos of the world made The Sharper Image a nifty merchant during its rise to prominence a quarter century ago, but it’s been subpar for quite some time. For the past several years, its exclusive offerings seemed to consist of a dozen different essentially identical compact stereos, and some expensive air purifiers of questionable efficacy. Most everything else in the place was available somewhere else, often for less money.
Saw this story today on Sharper Image gift cards. What’s to become of the gift cards of a merchant in Chapter 11? Interesting question, isn’t it? This is the part of the story I found most interesting:
The gift-card problem provides more ammunition to consumer-advocacy groups that have lashed out against expiration dates and burdensome fees imposed if cards are not used within a certain time frame. More than 20 states have passed regulations loosening restrictions on the use of gift cards.
More than 20 states have gift card laws.
Stop and think about that for a second. Try to shake off any the-Man’s-stickin’-it-to-us righteous indignation you may be bringing to the party. Take a breath. Ready? OK, let’s proceed.
Exactly what kind of laws do you need to specify terms between a buyer and a seller for a gift card? We’re not talking about an essential service here, and there are already plenty of useful and necessary laws concerning contracts. What business is it of the government what you and a merchant agree to? Why should it be unlawful for a merchant to require the card’s timely use? It’s a voluntary purchase, isn’t it? If the merchant wants to require you to bring seven goose feathers to the store to use your card, whose business is that but yours and the merchant’s?
Can’t anything just be anymore? Do we have to be “protected” from everything? Isn’t it a tragedy, how unfashionable it is to demand that people take care of themselves?
Bankruptcy of the issuing merchant? Well, them’s the breaks, folks. I was in possession of an instantly worthless Flooz.com gift certificate. Evaluate it as a risk when you make the purchase.
I wonder if any of those “more than 20 states”‘ laws are the direct result of someone bleating “there ought to be a law” because Best Buy “dicked ’em” out of $50? I wonder if that person so much as whimpered when s/he last bought a car from a dealership and signed away his/her right to a jury trial? I wonder if that person is whining now about being “stuck” in a “mortgage crisis” (sheesh, wasn’t I the silly one for buying a house I could afford with terms I understood?)?
There should be laws to protect the individual. I’m not arguing that at all. I am saying, though, that there ought to be a lot fewer of them than there are. When we “protect” the individual against every single thing that could possibly go wrong, we’re not doing anything but training him/her not to read the fine print. Apathy and atrophy thrive in an environment that requires no diligence.
Free markets solve these problems. Gift cards with obnoxious terms don’t sell. Gift cards with better terms do. What’s wrong with that?
You might also like:
- Skype, business cards, and a stubbornly old-fashioned society
So Microsoft is going to buy Skype for $8.5 billion. I just barely know what Skype is, which, if you… - Newegg.com tries to make me use the telephone, fails
Went to Newegg.com on Saturday and ordered my dad a gift certificate for his birthday. He didn’t get… - RIP, dedicated automatic teller card
“They” finally turned it off. Six or seven years they’ve been sending me those Visa debit cards, and… - Saturday at Publix
Here are the boys working on Lea’s personalized Mother’s Day cake: I said to the young woman running… - Obviously, I have my work to do
Fascinating to gamers and beer drinkers, I’m sure. Everyone else: would you like to hear about how I…
Have you seen this article about a loop hole in a smoking ban?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335771,00.html
I love the production “Before the Ban.”
LOL! Love it!
Not nearly enough of us celebrate the loopholes anymore. We’re all about the iron fist, baby.
Apathy and atrophy thrive in an environment that requires no diligence.
This is SO true. The scary part is that the younger generation (listen to me, talking like I’m a grandmother already, but the point remains) relies too heavily on the government and most, if not all, are unconcerned about the ever-broadening scope of its power.
Personally, I HATE gift cards with expiration dates. They should, in my mind, be treated just like cash. Still, your point is valid; the store/company gets to decide the terms of their policies, and then we, as consumers, get to agree or not with those terms.
The government has too much to worry about to start fussing with this. If they could take some of their attention away from stupid things like this and focus on what they really need to be fixing, we’d be much better off…
They also need to quit having “hearings” on every issue related to non-governance. As in, hearings on steroids in baseball. Then, they need to quit having people come testify to get to the “bottom” of things and later charging them with perjury. And, then… sigh.
Hey, Bo. We can sponsor a new national “month” – It’s Celebrate the LoopHoles month. I think it should be in April.
There is no doubt that consumers should educate themselves on the terms of any transaction they are considering, and make an informed decision. Having said that, many consumer protection laws are good ones, and virtually every one of them came about because of unscrupulous practices by businesses. By “unscrupulous” I mean deliberate conduct intended to deprive the consumer of the benefit of his or her bargain. It is not unusual for consumer protection laws to be just band-aids on existing legislative schemes favoring the businesses (and there are a lot more of those than the kind protecting citizens).
There is a category of business conduct not mentioned enough. That category is “contracts of adhesion.” What that means in plain English is that the terms of the deal are “take it or leave it.” What that means is that the business in question (usually a whole industry) has clever lawyers write up contractual provisions for the sole protection of the business, and for the consumer to buy the product (or engage the service) the terms must be “agreed” to.
This comment is getting extra long, so I’ll desist. I want to throw in that I think Congress wasting its time on baseball and such is a two-edged sword. Congress is quite fond of dealing with relatively unimportant issues, because the honorable members are all Permanent Candidates and going the “wrong” way on a really important issue could sink them. They squander the trust and responsibility we placed with them. On the other hand, while Congress is doing piddly-shit, they have less time to pass odious unnecessary laws. Remember, “No man is safe in his life or property while the legislature is in session.”
Oh, yeah, I despise companies which sell gift cards (thus, in essence, taking in money, helping the bottom line, etc., etc.) with terms which in essence mean they’d like to increase the value of that transaction by never having to surrender any goods in exchange for the money.
Sharper Image was a company which never offered anything for sale unlesss it was overpriced and probably useless. They had no genuine reason to exist. Goodbye and Good Riddance.
Yes, Gerry, but how do you REALLY feel about it? 😉
This is what I truly value about Gerry; you never have to guess with him. I like that in a person, and aspire to it myself…
Yes, Gerry loves all these laws to punish all these big bad corporations. That way, all his lawyer friends can make huge amounts of money suing these companies. Way to go Gerry. Suing em all out of business.
I did a post discussing law. I offer it for your perusal.