I’ve recently begun using Ebay, and I’ve noticed that they have gift certificates for a great deal less than they are actually worth. Is there a catch here?
Also, on a side note, what does Ebay get out of all of this bidding stuff?
eBay charges each seller a fee for listing each item, then again a fee (depening on the final/winning bid) for selling it. The fees are small, but they add up fast.
I don’t know about your first question, but when you list items for sale on ebay, you do have to pay a small fee. The more elaborate your listing, the more you’ll pay.
WAG on your first question - probably people receiving gift certificates as presents, through corporate events, etc. that have no intention of using them. Because you usually can’t just get cash instead of using the certificate, it’s easier to sell it at a slight “loss” and get cash you could use instead. And sometimes the loss isn’t all that great - such as the $25.00 Target gift card that is currently bidding at $24.
Also, they take a cut of the final price. It’s a higher percentage as the price goes up, just like Uncle Sam. 
Actually, the fee as a percentage decreases as the final value increases:
$0.01 - $25.00 5.25% of the closing value
$25.01 - $1,000.00 5.25% of the initial $25.00
($1.31), plus 2.75% of the
remaining closing value
balance ($25.01 to $1,000.00)
Over $1,000.01 5.25% of the initial $25.00
($1.31), plus 2.75% of the
initial $25.00 - $1,000.00
($26.81), plus 1.50% of the
remaining closing value
balance ($1,000.01 - closing value)
I just found a $100.00 gift certificate someone gave me. I have been to the restaurant two or three times since I got the certificate, but I always forgot to bring it along. Now it is expired. I would have been better off selling it on Ebay for $50. 
You could do much worse than to invest in ebay stock. It’s gone up 80% this year alone. It’s by far the dominate on-line auction house and probably will be for the forseeable future.
I’ve been told that Pennsylvania law does not allow gift certificates to have an expiration date.
Connecticut law was recently updated to outlaw expirations of gift cards (and I’m assuming that includes gift certificates) as well as the fees that were being charged on unused balances.
Read the descriptions of the gift certificates carefully, and you will see that most of them have rather large catches. The restaurants sends them out by the truckload, because they know that they will make it back on all the other money you spend that night.
Look at who is selling the gift certificate, too. Most of them are listed by companies who specialize in stuff like this. They aren’t being offered by Joe Blowski, who got it for Christmas.
If it was actually purchased for you, then likely it is not expired at all. Talk to the management, and keep going until you get the top dude.
Now, if it was part of a prize or promotion, then yes, that’s another matter.
This is a good point; I had a gift certificate that I found after it expired. I called the restaurant (about a month and a half after it expired) and they told me if I brought it in relatively soon, they’d have no problem honoring it.
And then I lost it again.
The gift cert was purchased as a gift for me. I could prolly convince the restaurant to honor it, but I wouldn’t do that. I was aware of the expiration and I f’d up. The buck stops here.
I seriously doubt it would be a matter of “convincing”. If you go to the restaurant and say “Hey, I didn’t realize this $50 giftcard expired last month, can I still use it?” they’ll likely say yes. It’s not a major f-up at all, and they’d rather have your business than you throw the card away.
Ebay’s final bidding price fees have been explained in depth, so I’ll go into the placement fees.
eBay charges you a fee to place an item for sale on its site. This fee varies according to your opening bid price: items with opening bids of $1 might cost 25¢ to post on their site, while items with opening bids of $1,000 might cost $10 to post on their site.
This is the main reason that most auctions start at $1 or 1¢, although such low opening bids are also great ways to “kick start” your auctions. After all, a brand-new laptop with an opening bid of 1¢ sounds too good to be true. If my past selling experiences on eBay are any indication, the bid price for almost any item will eventually reach its actual value if it starts at a very low price; conversely, an auction for the same laptop with an opening bid of $700 tends to get fewer bids than the 1¢ auction, even though the bidding in the 1¢ auction will surely exceed $700.
Also, eBay has various “add-on” options that they charge for when you post an item for sale. Placing an item in the “featured auctions” section (which appear at the top of any search results), adding extra pictures, having thumbnail pictures of your item appear on search results pages, making your auction listing appear in boldface, having your auction appear on the main ebay.com page and having your auction appear in more than two sections… all these things cost money in addition to the “posting fees”. They also vary in price a lot - I believe that adding additional pictures costs only 25¢ each, but having the auction appear on the ebay.com main page is fairly expensive.
NOTE: prices quoted above may not be accurate. I have not sold an item on eBay in more than a year.
If I say, “Hey, I didn’t realize this $50 giftcard expired last month, can I still use it?” I have no doubt they would allow me to use it. But I would be lying. I did know, I just am bad about using gift certificates/gift cards. I end up tossing around half of what I am given.
How about saying “Hey, I never got around to using this”? It’s no skin of the restaurant’s nose – they’ve already got the $$, they’ll likely be happy to provide the service.
–Cliffy
Or they’d rather have your card than throw your business away.
Man, I was looking at ebay today and was going to post a question on this very topic.
I suppose this is a caevat emptor deal. The inability to check if a gift certificate is good or not is what would turn me off.
The other thing I found odd was the miniscule savings most had (opening prices were often only 10-15% less than the face value) and then I saw ones that had been bid practically up to their face value. Would this possibly be an indication of malfeseance (or having friends run up the prices) or is this an example of the auction “have to have it at any cost” mentality?
Sure. But that doesn’t matter. Talk to High Management and be hones, and be nice. Tell 'em that you* were* aware, but kept forgetting to bring it in- on your numerous repeat visits. They very likely know that they were in violation of the law in printing an expiration date on the thing in the first place. Purchased Gift Certs don’t have an expiration date. So- you were in no wise in the wrong- except your absent-mindedness, of course.