Is there a universal way to read the value left on a gift card?

Factual Questions
1

I guess the question says it all. If we assume I have a number of gift cards of unknown value, is there some universal way they can be read, short of going to each company’s website (assuming they have this feature) and checking? I don’t actually know how gift cards work in the grand scheme of things, so is it that the card itself has value, or is it simply that when the card is purchased, a record is made in an endless number of proprietary database systems that simply says “this is card XYZ123 which is the only piece of data on the magnetic strip, and the database record associated with it says it has $5.12 left on it”?

2

I do not have the factual answer but if the card itself is the only place where the value is stored it would be a massive opportunity for fraud. So I’m thinking not.

3

The gift card’s value is stored in a database somewhere, the card itself is used only to look up that amount (and adjust it as necessary).
If the card contained an actual value, like CWG said, there would be a ton of fraud, but on top of that, stores would need credit card readers that could also write to the cards and you wouldn’t be able to use them in ‘card not present’ situations such as over the phone or on the internet.

So the short answer is no. The only way to find the value of any specific card is to do whatever that store wants you to do. Use their website, call a number, come in and swipe it etc…

4

There are a lot of different types of gift cards, but a relatively few companies that do the underlying processing. The barcode and/or mag strip uniquely identifies the card and issuer, and allows the value to be looked up in a central database. I am fairly familiar with one issuer/processor (Givex, whom I use for my store’s cards) and somewhat familiar with Visa’s cards. If you have any specific questions, I can try to answer them for you.

Interestingly, my processing bank just rejected a Visa gift card yesterday because of an invalid expiration date (Feb 2020) - apparently too far in the future. Our gift cards have no expiration date, as some states don’t allow gift cards that expire.