Unused gift cards generate billions of dollars in pure unearned profit for major retail corporations every single year because consumers simply forget to spend them.

A closer look

Unused gift cards generate billions of dollars in pure unearned profit for major retail corporations every single year because consumers simply forget to spend them. This phenomenon is known in the financial world as breakage, and it is built directly into the quarterly earnings projections of companies like Starbucks and Target. Whenever your aunt gives you a twenty dollar piece of plastic for your birthday instead of actual cash, she is basically just making a zero-interest loan to a multi-national conglomerate. So when you inevitably lose that plastic card in the bottom of a drawer, you are generously donating your hard-earned family money directly to the yacht fund of a wealthy corporate executive