The Prepaid Press - InComm to Continue the Sale of Gift Cards in NJ

06/19/2013

InComm to Continue the Sale of Gift Cards in NJ

New Bill Amends Unclaimed Property Statutes

ATLANTA, GA (July 1, 2012) InComm, a prepaid product and transaction services company, plans to continue the sale of its Vanilla-branded Visa and MasterCard gift cards, as well as its retail branded gift card mall program in New Jersey.

InComm had previously announced its plans to withdraw these programs from New Jersey retail locations because of the detrimental economic impact to businesses and consumers created by the 2010 modifications to New Jersey's unclaimed property law. Now, however, as a result of the new bill signed into law this week amending New Jersey's unclaimed property and consumer protection statutes, InComm will continue offering these programs in New Jersey retail locations for the immediate future. In addition to implementing a four-year moratorium on the law's previous data collection requirement, the new bill protects consumers by eliminating expiration dates and post-purchase fees on gift cards sold in New Jersey.

"We plan to continue selling gift cards in New Jersey indefinitely as long as there is no requirement to collect consumer data at the point of sale," said Brooks Smith, president and CEO of InComm. "That new bill signed into law places a moratorium on the collection of consumer data for four years, which would expire in 2016. InComm intends to spend the next four years working to have any such data collection requirement permanently removed from the law. In the end, the data collection requirement negatively impacts all gift card issuers as well as New Jersey businesses and consumers, and we are hopeful that our continued efforts will result in further improvements to the law and continued protection for consumers."

Source: InComm