News

Ontario's Consumer Protection Act was supposed to outlaw gift cards with expiry dates or penalty fees, but all the loopholes won't be closed until after the Christmas shopping season.

While the new rules under the act took effect on Oct. 1, gift cards from shopping malls are still exempt and will be for several more months.

The provincial act states that gift cards cannot expire, cannot be sold with a transaction fee, and cannot penalize shoppers for not spending their credit immediately.

Before the legislation was updated, shoppers complained they often had as little as a year to use their gift cards before they expired, and some retailers charged a penalty fee for each month the balance wasn't spent.

But Minister of Government and Consumer Services Ted McMeekin admits shopping malls still won't be bound by the rules for another few months.

He says a temporary exemption was granted until an outside accounting firm could determine if it would be fair to apply the same rules to individual retailers and shopping malls.

“The mall operators have a slightly different mode of doing business,” Mr. McMeekin said. “There are some unique characteristics to that that we need to study.”

A spokesman for Mr. McMeekin said annual gift card sales in Ontario amount to about $1.5-billion, and about 85 per cent of the cards are sold by individual retailers, who must obey the new regulations.

Mr. McMeekin said there's been very good compliance by retailers so far, but consumers can call a complaint line if they have a problem with the terms of a gift card they purchased.