News

The Gift of Time
Column by Rep. Mark Bryant
House District 110, Part of Windham and Part of Gray

Last Christmas, a friend of mine wanted to take his wife out to a nice dinner while doing some holiday shopping in Portland. It had been a year full of ups and downs for their family since he'd been laid off from Sappi, and he really wanted to do something special for her since she had done so much to help him pursue his dream of changing careers.

For their anniversary the year before, a family member had given them a gift card to one of their favorite restaurants. They had been saving it for a special occasion like this. Dinner was fantastic-a real treat for them, since they don't frequently eat out-and then the bill came.

They noticed that the gift card didn't pay quite as much as they had expected, but they had planned on paying a little more for the meal, so they had extra cash. What they didn't know at the time was that some of the money on their gift card had been eaten up by hidden fees, called dormancy fees. With many retail or restaurant gift cards, these fees penalize the recipients for not using them right away, sometimes up to several dollars per month.

I didn't think much about their restaurant bill until I saw another type of bill. This time, it was during a public hearing for one of the committees I serve on, the Judiciary Committee. The legislation, which has now been enacted into law, gets rid of those hidden fees. Instead, if a merchant has to charge any type of fee to cover the production costs of the card, it needs to be charged up front. It also prevents the retailer from putting an arbitrary expiration date on gift cards.

The new law isn't intended to burden merchants, merely to help them better deliver what they promise to a customer. Last year, gift cards became the top gift choice, accounting for $50 billion in American sales. Most of the other New England states, and many other states throughout the country, have already banned these dormancy fees.

Despite the new ban on hidden fees, there are still some reasons for consumers to read the fine print. The new law only applies to gift cards, not bank cards. Unused gift cards will still become dormant after two years, and will be deemed abandoned property by the State Treasurer. This is how we treat gift cards already, and this law brings us into better conformity with our unclaimed property laws. So you should still use them, or lose them. The difference is that it just won't cost as much.

As the legislative session draws to a close, I'll be spending day and night at the State House deliberating on bills. Please let me know your thoughts on any pending pieces of legislation so I can make an informed decision for our area. I can be reached in Augusta at 1-800-423-2900, or by e-mail at RepMarkBryant@yahoo.com.