Chapter
378
2005 -- S 1221
Enacted 07/19/05
A N A C T
RELATING TO COMMERCIAL LAW -- UNFAIR SALES PRACTICES
Introduced By: Senators Doyle, Tassoni, and McBurney
Date
Introduced: June 30, 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, a prepaid
telephone
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, 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.
=======
LC03663
=======