31–40 of 45 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Not ideal for users" is a fun way to describe what is essentially theft.
If you buy groceries and let them expire in your fridge because you forgot to use them, did the grocery store stole the money from you?
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That’s pretty common. While I agree it’s not ideal for users, having credits that never expire is a headache for businesses. They’d effectively owe you compute forever, which complicates accounting. It also makes pricing changes harder, since people could keep using credits they bought at much lower prices. And, of course, if credits expire before they’re used, the company ends up keeping the money without having to…
Your argument is complete nonsense, considering that numerous services, e.g. Uber, Lyft, GrubHub, DoorDash etc. have purchased gift card credits that never expire. If these were to expire, it would be a clear case of theft. Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about the facts. A gift certificate is a business liability under GAAP. And you’re not required to hold that liability forever.
FASB ASC 606 (Revenue from Contracts with Customers)
What’s more, Federal Law gives you only 5 years, but states may have additional protections,
“Under the law, a gift card cannot expire until at least five years from the date it was activated. The law also places general limitations on fees. For instance, the card issuer cannot charge a dormancy or inactivity fee on a gift card unless there has been no activity for one year and the card clearly states its policy toward that fee.”
The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (Credit CARD, 2009)
https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/december2019.ht...
There are two relevant laws. One controls gift cards and credits, which in California are valid for a minimum of 10 years regardless of what the company may say. Companies make a surprisingly significant amount of money on selling credits and expiring them from their balance sheet.
The second law is a requirement that they issue itemized receipts. If they can’t give you an itemized accounting of how they managed your money (because, as noted above, it’s your money until you spend it) that’s fraud.
Have fun!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument is complete nonsense, considering that numerous services, e.g. Uber, Lyft, GrubHub, DoorDash etc. have purchased gift card credits that never expire. If these were to expire, it would be a clear case of theft. Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.
> “Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.” I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about the facts. A gift certificate is a business liability under GAAP. And you’re not required to hold that liability forever. FASB ASC 606 (Revenue from Contracts with Customers) What’s more, Federal Law gives you only 5 years, but states may have additional protections, “Under the law, a gift card cannot expire until at least five yea…
https://www.ncsl.org/financial-services/gift-cards-and-gift-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument is complete nonsense, considering that numerous services, e.g. Uber, Lyft, GrubHub, DoorDash etc. have purchased gift card credits that never expire. If these were to expire, it would be a clear case of theft. Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.
> “Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.” I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about the facts. A gift certificate is a business liability under GAAP. And you’re not required to hold that liability forever. FASB ASC 606 (Revenue from Contracts with Customers) What’s more, Federal Law gives you only 5 years, but states may have additional protections, “Under the law, a gift card cannot expire until at least five yea…
You say that, but you haven't explained how it is a liability, and I consider it debatable. In practice, there is a near-zero risk to a large firm in a statistical sense if the firm caps the max amount held per user to say $1000 or whatever the acceptable limit is. It's not as if millions of users are suddenly going to exercise their balances all at once unless the firm is going out of business anyway.
Cloud computing firms even allow me to keep tens of thousands of dollars in my account balance, with no expiration, which helps me ensure that my cloud services will keep running for years if not decades. There is just no strong case for OpenAI expiring unused balances after one year. In my prior comment, I already named various large firms that NEVER expire gift card balances.
The reputation loss from an expired balance is vastly more consequential. Thinking solely from an accounting pov is absurd.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument is complete nonsense, considering that numerous services, e.g. Uber, Lyft, GrubHub, DoorDash etc. have purchased gift card credits that never expire. If these were to expire, it would be a clear case of theft. Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.
> “Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.” I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about the facts. A gift certificate is a business liability under GAAP. And you’re not required to hold that liability forever. FASB ASC 606 (Revenue from Contracts with Customers) What’s more, Federal Law gives you only 5 years, but states may have additional protections, “Under the law, a gift card cannot expire until at least five yea…
And an expectation that the liabilities will never be called is an offsetting asset. It never offsets to quite zero, but over time it gets pretty darn close.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you buy groceries and let them expire in your fridge because you forgot to use them, did the grocery store stole the money from you?
Not equivalent because the product purchased hasn’t yet been redeemed in the case of the credits. The equivalent would be buying a gift card from a grocery store and then the store saying you can’t use the card because it expired.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “Your comment is an attempt at covering up fraud.” I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about the facts. A gift certificate is a business liability under GAAP. And you’re not required to hold that liability forever. FASB ASC 606 (Revenue from Contracts with Customers) What’s more, Federal Law gives you only 5 years, but states may have additional protections, “Under the law, a gift card cannot expire until at least five yea…
> A gift certificate is a business liability You say that, but you haven't explained how it is a liability, and I consider it debatable. In practice, there is a near-zero risk to a large firm in a statistical sense if the firm caps the max amount held per user to say $1000 or whatever the acceptable limit is. It's not as if millions of users are suddenly going to exercise their balances all at once unless the firm is…
I gave chapter and verse.
But let me try to help with the intuition. It’s about accounting. That’s all. Not your intuition. Not my preference. Ready?
Record. It’s the agreed upon rules for how some named monetary _thing_, which is constant flow and here defined, can be said to have a value x at time t. Gift card is a liability until used when it is recognized as revenue. Period. Full stop. End recording.
All the laws, maybe your law of how long they should keep the liability, are down stream from this. Everything else is chaos and confusion.
OpenRouter expired my credits because they were "too old" (more than 12 months old). Didn't realize credits would rot like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A gift certificate is a business liability You say that, but you haven't explained how it is a liability, and I consider it debatable. In practice, there is a near-zero risk to a large firm in a statistical sense if the firm caps the max amount held per user to say $1000 or whatever the acceptable limit is. It's not as if millions of users are suddenly going to exercise their balances all at once unless the firm is…
> “You say that, but you haven't explained how it is a liability, and I consider it debatable.” I gave chapter and verse. But let me try to help with the intuition. It’s about accounting. That’s all. Not your intuition. Not my preference. Ready? Record. It’s the agreed upon rules for how some named monetary _thing_, which is constant flow and here defined, can be said to have a value x at time t. Gift card is a liabi…
It's your biased interpretation that it's a liability. A clever firm may use a safe fraction of it to collect interest via a bank or directly via treasuries. This turns your logic on its head. The longer the gift card stays unused, the more revenue it generates via interest. Just enough needs to be kept as cash to fund customer expenses for the next two quarters.