Consumer

Buyers Get Unwanted Gift Cards At Discounted Rates

CHICAGO (CBS) ― More than half of us will buy gift cards this Christmas. We'll spend $26 billion on cards from stores selling everything from clothing to cosmetics. Most of us will pay full price for the cards, but not Alex Harris.

Harris is Christmas shopping at plasticjungle.com, a Web site that buys, trades and sells unwanted gift cards.

"I have nieces and nephews. I plan on buying them a couple of Nintendo games," Harris said. "I'm looking for best buy and circuit city gift cards."

The list of name-brand gift cards on the site is long. They come from people looking to get rid of gift card they don't need or want, and the sellers are willing to cut a deal.

"The average card on Plastic Jungle sells for 85 percent of value so you're looking for 10 to 15 percent, sometimes as much as 30 percent savings," Tina Henson, CEO of Plastic Jungle, said.

Plastic Jungle is just one of a number of sites that resell gift cards, others include cardavenue.com and swapagift.com. Even e-Bay and Craig's List offer discount gift cards.

At Plastic Jungle every card comes with a guarantee that what you buy is what you get.

"Every single gift card that's received or has been entered is verified so the balance is verified," Henson said. "It's verified that that merchant is the retailer. And if for some reason you get a bad card, Plastic Jungle will refund your money."

It doesn't take long to get your gift card. It usually cost under $1 and the seller pays for shipping.

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