cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/2046140

What’s the point of allowing money to expire? If you buy a top-up for a GSM account, what legit reason could there be for allowing carriers to screw over consumers on such an arbitrary basis? Indeed, if you buy phone credit in Belgium, it expires. I just bought a top-up card that had already expired because I did not notice the expiration date in tiny print.

Interesting to notice that some US states have banned gift cards that expire.

  • autonomousPunk@belgae.socialOP
    13·
    10 天前

    Of course gift cards are money. You can’t buy a burger in Germany with Mexican pesos either. But Mexican pesos don’t cease to be money on the basis that it’s not usable everywhere for everything.

    Note as well you may be able to buy a burger at the Ikea cafeteria using an Ikea gift card. Haven’t tried it, but nonetheless it would be a shitty test for deciding whether to call it money.

    • one_old_coder@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      10 天前

      You can’t buy a burger in Germany with Mexican pesos either

      You can exchange your pesos to euros. Can you do the same with your pokemon cards?

      • autonomousPunk@belgae.socialOP
        12·
        10 天前

        You can exchange your pesos to euros. Can you do the same with your pokemon cards?

        Of course. Just as I bought the gift cards with euros, the person on the other side of the transaction received euros for the gift cards. I could play either role depending on what I am starting with.

    • TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      10 天前

      You must be very young, or incredibly nieve to not understand how gift cards function. They’re basically IOUs you buy from a company. They are not a form of currency backed by the government.

      • autonomousPunk@belgae.socialOP
        12·
        10 天前

        How can you be so naive as to think money in the bank is yours? That’s not /your/ money in the bank. It’s the bank’s money. There is an IOU from the bank to you.

        Same with cash money. It’s no longer backed by gold reserves. It’s backed by nothing. All you have is /trust/; just like gift cards. Have look at what’s printed on US dollar banknotes. It’s spelled out for you.