Trading gift cards for cash

Gift cards sell like hotcakes, yet a quarter of Americans who receive them during the holidays have at least one lying around 10 months later, according to Consumer Reports surveys. Brian Riley, senior research director for the TowerGroup, a financial services firm, estimates that consumers left $2.5 billion worth of gift-card value on the table in 2010.

If your gift cards are gathering dust, there's another option: Turn them into cash. In recent years, there's been a surge in websites that claim to pay 50 to 95 percent of the value of a wide range of gift cards. The sites then resell the cards to the public for up to 30 percent off face value.

We used the online calculators for four such sites to see how much they'd pay for cards with a $200 face value from eight major retailers. The lessons learned:

• Some cards are worth more than others. Sites were generally willing to pay more for cards from Walmart, Home Depot, and Whole Foods than for those from Brooks Brothers. Deals may change at any time, though. Kwame Kuadey, founder of Giftcardrescue, said the price depends on a merchant's popularity, which his company determines through a "wish list" survey of customers.
• Look at several sites. No one always had the best deals. Overall, for $1,600 worth of cards, they paid from $1,232 to $1,298. Cardpool paid the most for a Bonefish Grill card but the least for a Brooks Brothers card.
• Read the guarantee. For example, Monstergiftcard offers "a 100% guarantee that the stated value of the gift card is what you will receive. If not, we will offer to send you another gift card to make up the difference or send you the difference in cash." Offers at other sites may differ.
• A "personalized" card may be worthless. Some sites buy only cards that lack the owner's name, because "it has to be something that can be used without hindrance," according to Kuadey.

What you get for a $200 card