Chapter 209
2005 -- H 5027
SUBSTITUTE B AS AMENDED
Enacted 07/08/05
A N A C T
RELATING
TO COMMERCIAL LAW - - UNFAIR SALES PRACTICES
Introduced By:
Representatives Kennedy, Lewiss, San Bento, E Coderre, and Kilmartin
Date
Introduced: January 12, 2005
It is enacted by the General Assembly as
follows:
SECTION 1. Section
6-13-12 of the General Laws in Chapter 6-13 entitled "Unfair Sales
Practices" is hereby amended to read as
follows:
6-13-12.
Sales of gift certificates. -- "Gift certificate" means a
record evidencing a
promise, made for monetary consideration, by the
seller or issuer for the record that goods or
services will be provided to the owner of the
record to the value shown in the record and includes,
but is not limited to, a record that contains a
microprocessor chip, magnetic strip or other means
of storage of information that is pre-funded and
for which the value is decremented upon each
use, a gift card, an electronic gift card,
stored-value card or certificate, a store card, prepaid long
distance telephone service that is activated by
a prepaid card that requires dialing an access
number or an access code for each call in
addition to dialing the phone number to which the user
of the prepaid card seeks to connect, a prepaid telephone card or a similar record or
card. Any
person, firm, or corporation that sells gift
certificates for any product or merchandise sold by the
person, firm, or corporation, shall be required
to record the sales and keep an accurate and
complete record of each gift certificate sold.
The record shall include the date of sale, the full
value of the certificate, the identification
number assigned by the retailer to the certificate, and the
state in which the sale of the certificate took
place. The retailer shall further be required to give to
the purchaser of gift certificates exceeding
fifty dollars ($50.00) a written and numbered receipt
evidencing the sale of the certificate. It shall
be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation of
any kind to charge additional monthly or annual
service or maintenance fees on gift certificates or
to limit the time for the redemption of a gift
certificate or to place an expiration date upon the gift
certificate. No gift certificate or any
agreement with respect to such gift certificate may contain
language suggesting that an expiration date may
apply to the gift certificate. Any person, firm, or
corporation that shall violate the provisions of
this section shall be punished by a fine of not more
than two hundred dollars ($200). Due to the
unlimited redemption period, the division of taxation
shall not escheat the funds paid for those
unredeemed gift certificates. Any unused portion of a
redeemed gift certificate shall be afforded to
the consumer by reissuing the gift certificate for the
unused amount or providing cash where the
balance due the consumer is less than one dollar
($1.00). This section shall not apply to the
following:
(a)
General-use prepaid cards issued by a third-party prepaid card issuer which
shall
mean plastic cards or other electronic payment
devices which are: (1) usable at multiple,
unaffiliated, merchants or service providers
and/or at automatic teller machines ("ATMs"); (2)
issued in a requested amount which amount may
be, at the option of the issuer, increased to value
or reloaded if requested by the holder; (3)
purchased and/or loaded on a prepaid basis by a
consumer and shall not include debit cards
linked to a deposit account, or cards purchased by a
business entity; and (4) honored upon
presentation by merchants for goods or services, or at
ATMs.
(b) (a)
Gift certificates that are distributed to a consumer pursuant to an awards,
loyalty
or promotional program without any money or
other thing of value being given in exchange for
the gift certificate by the consumer. Any
restrictions or limitations which such gift certificates
may be subject to must be disclosed to the
consumer, in writing, at the time the gift certificates
are distributed to the consumer.
(c) (b)
Cards used for prepaid wireless telephone services will not be subject to
this
section until January 1, 2006. Prepaid wireless
telephone service or prepaid wireless telephone
card. "Prepaid wireless telephone service"
means wireless telephone service that is activated in
advance by payment for a finite dollar amount of
service or for a finite set of minutes that
terminate either upon use by a customer and
delivery by the wireless provider of an agreed-upon
amount of service corresponding to the total
dollar amount paid in advance or within a certain
period of time following the initial purchase or
activation, unless additional payments are made.
SECTION
2. This act shall take effect upon passage.
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LC00296/SUB
B
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