Before You Give Those Gift Cards Check This List

Are you planning to give gift cards this Christmas?

If so, you need to be aware that many gift cards will NOT be honored after the holidays.

Stores that are publicly planning to close after Christmas are STILL selling gift cards even though many of the cards will be worthless when the stores close in 2009.

Apparently there is no law preventing them from doing this.

For some unscrupulous stores it is actually referred to as "Bankruptcy Planning".

Posted below is a partial list of stores that you should be very cautious about buying gift cards from:

Circuit City - (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor - 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug and Catherine's - to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer - to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache - closing all stores
Talbots - closing down specialty stores
J.Jill - closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear - (also owned by Talbots)
GAP - closing 85 stores
Footlocker - closing 140 stores
Wickes Furniture - closing down
Levitz - closing down remaining stores
Bombay - closing remaining stores
Zales - closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall - closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda - closing all stores
Disney - closing 98 stores and will close more after January
Home Depot - closing 15 stores
Macys - closing 9 stores after January
Linens and Things - closing all stores
Movie Galley - closing all stores
Pep Boys - closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel - closing 133 stores
JC Penney - closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen - closing down 12 stores
Wilson Leather - closing down all stores
Sharper Image - closing down all stores
K B Toys - closing 356 stores
Dillard's - closing "some" stores

If you know of any other store closings please leave a comment to this post so that we can add them to the list.

After looking this list over, are any of you still not convinced that we are in the middle of an economic collapse?