Here's another cautionary tale about gift cards: Sharper Image Corp. stopped honoring its own gift cards Feb. 19, the day the electronics chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
That stuck Sharper Image customers with $43-million in outstanding gift cards, so we're not talking a few Ionic Breeze air purifiers here.
It's all because accountants treat gift cards as loans until they are redeemed. So once a retailer files for protection from creditors, people holding gift cards get in the back of the line at bankruptcy court with unsecured creditors waiting for the unlikely event of a payoff.
While some wags wondered where bored husbands will kill time playing with gadgets without a Sharper Image around when their wives take them shopping, Brookstone smelled opportunity in its rival's pain.
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