Going Back to Basics
You should never look a gift horse in the mouth, not that I exactly know what that means because I really want to say that I don’t like gift cards. I have received them in the past for birthdays and thank you’s and so on and they have been highly appreciated, but they can also be annoying, a waste and very profitable for the companies who put them out. I think the profit margin is enhanced by the very certainty that many of the cards will never be redeemed because they will be lost, damaged, stolen, become outdated, or simply teleported to another dimension.
I once received a $100 gift card from my real estate agent after he sold us our present house. It was a very generous thank you which I appreciated very much. I kept the card in my wallet for a year and during that time carried it through hot, dusty, polluted, humid China and many parts of South- East Asia as part of the aging process until through constant friction I wore off all numerical identification marks from the face of the card rendering it useless and therefore of no value. When I finally went to redeem the card for a wonderful dinner at the Galt Inn the waitress returned the aging but non-biodegradable card to me saying she was unable to scan the numbers on the card. I would have to pay for my meal with other means, possibly cash.
Whose fault? Well mine of course for hanging on to the damn thing for so long. But if I had a gift certificate, or cash I think the illegible numbers would be a moot point. Is this a devious planned obsolescence plot of global proportions. No, but it is annoying and a waste of good money. I guess what really bothers me as that despite the fact these cards when received represent good intent, best wishes and have a generally positive tone and increase your quality of life, they are on the other hand relatively impersonal to a degree as well. What they make up in portability, mobility, transferability and redeem-ability they lack in the personal touch. Although I suppose getting a card for Home Depot versus Victoria Secret does say much about the giver and the receiver and the relationship they might share.
Customer loyalty cards are another type of card that have even a higher degree of uselessness within our society and economy. One can collect any variety of points from Petro to Air Travel and buy valuable items/gifts from bottled water to digital cameras, cheese corn and airline travel, but be reminded that some restrictions may apply; so please contact your distributor for dates, times, quantities and program applications for your region.
It gets to a point that a given company has two distinct levels of goods and/or services that it offers to the public, those that it actually produces and its loyalty customer points. After a time it becomes unclear to the consumer as to which is more important buying the product or using the platinum card that will generate the most points to buy those wonderful gift items, like bottled water or windshield washer fluid, the type that can remove the bugs in summer.
Case in point before moving to Woodstock I took my car for repair work at Busy Corner in Waterloo a dingy run down building with no waiting room or washroom for costumers, but run by likely the most honest and competent mechanic on the planet. When he diagnosed my car in a certain way it was a certain truth.
For dependability and things in this life that you can count on there is: death and taxes and then there is Busy Corner. They are that solid a garage, not that it is good to be compared to either death or taxes. Suffice it to say that I trust this man with my car, my first born, and just about anything else. He does not operate a customer loyalty card system because he doesn’t have to. I am a loyal customer to begin with because his prices are low, his work of high quality, he is fast, moderately friendly, what more could you ask for in a mechanic.
Steve’s Garage in Woodstock has coffee, clean washrooms, a waiting room, with a flat screen TV, and it has a loyalty customer service program. It also over charges; so why would I want all these things? I already have my $1300 brake job with alignment and enough points to buy a six pack of Pepsi. Please let’s stop with the loyalty points! Just give fair competitive prices.
My wife recently received the “Perfect Gift” so called from VISA. A $50 gift card which takes a $4.95 activation fee, what is that 10% off the top to begin with. I can begin to see why they called it the “Perfect Gift”. She tried to redeem it at a beauty spa where she was getting a facial, pedicure and whatever else one does in a spa location for relaxation and self beautification. At the end of her luxuriating she quickly lost her zen glow and tranquility when she went to pay with her “Perfect Gift” card.
Apparently she could only redeem a portion of the bill. Later, when I contacted the VIsa personnel in Mumbai on her behalf for an explanation, I was told that if I go on line, to the VISA web site, it would all be clearly explained, or if I read the fact info sheet that came with the card it succinctly explained the limitation, combinations and permutations, time zones and countries in which the card could be used. It was written in tissue thin paper using a 3 point font rendering it almost impossible to handle without the paper degrading to the touch and equally impossible to read without aid of external magnification devices.
I asked the young man on the other end of the phone who spoke in a thick Indian accent to quickly indicate to me out of the 100 or so bullet points on the micro thin fact sheet which one actually applied to my wife’s spa purchasing experience. I waited a good ten seconds for a reasonable response which felt much longer before I told the person that, “How dare you and your company expect my wife to know the limitations of her perfect gift card when you the so called expert on the info line, in a distant foreign land, after an appropriate amount of time, and after your training period, could not answer the same questions. You hypocrite.” It rolled off my lips very easily at the point.
“How do you then expect my wife to know that her card will not cover her purchases and that she will then be left embarrassed and humiliated at the cashier lacking the immediate resources to pay for her day at the spa because her so called “Perfect Gift” fell so far short of perfection that it was a useless piece of marketing plastic.” I had to breathe. I was on a roll but upon reflection had to conclude...
I just think there are too many cards and passwords in our society as it is, and to admit this whole genre of gift cards into the mix on top of all of the existing reward cards and customer loyalty cards, the multitude of credit and debit cards from various institutions my wallet looks more like a recycle bin. If only we could just have a system whereby companies offered the best price with competence and service therefore competition would not be based on a loyalty system of plastic cards and points with passwords we all forget and confuse. If we gave gifts in actual boxes, with cards we wrote in cursive script, and that took up volume instead of giving plastic cards in a cashless society... we all might be a little more content going back to basics.
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