Do you have a gift card? You may be able to claim money on it.

Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll look at how unused gift cards add up. We'll also get details about a new study that found that the share of New York City residents who couldn't afford basic necessities rose dramatically in 2022.

Do you have any gift vouchers lying around that you have not yet used?

Many of us do that, according to an audit of the State Control Agency. It turned out that there are almost $40 million in unclaimed balances on gift cards in New York City.

Gift cards are often a stopgap for desperate gift givers who haven't yet found the right gift for someone on their list – or who haven't bothered shopping at all. About 58 percent of the 1,208 people surveyed Citizen sciencea Pittsburgh-based research firm, reported that he received at least one gift card as a Christmas present last year.

But many cards remain unused. In the same CivicScience survey, 56 percent of those who received gift cards said they had “a few” or “a lot” on hand.

In New York, Manhattanites seem particularly unhurried about spending their gift cards. Of the $40 million in unclaimed balances, the Comptroller's Office said cardholders in Manhattan accounted for more than a third, $14.5 million — the most in the state.

Brooklyn residents had the second-highest total in the state, $9.5 million, followed by Bronx residents at $7.3 million and Queens residents at $7 million. Staten Island followed Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties with $1.4 million, along with upstate counties including Buffalo and Rochester.

You can claim the balance of a gift card received if it has been inactive for a certain period of time: five years if it was purchased between August 2010 and December 2022, or nine years if it is newer. The issuers are required by law to report such balances to the Comptroller's Office, which works with retailers to identify holders of unclaimed funds.

But the control office can only send a report if it knows who to look for and where to look. This means that you registered the card with the retailer or the gift card was purchased with a credit or debit card that can be traced.

However, if you have an inactive gift card that you have not registered, you can contact the issuer and the checking office.

Warnings about scams

The Federal Trade Commission has said that gift cards are far more likely to be involved in fraud than any other form of payment. “The number of gift card scams continues to rise,” New York Secretary of State Robert Rodriguez said last year as a new state law took effect requiring retailers to post notices about potential gift card fraud.

Rodriguez warned that scammers often ask for the numbers on the back of gift cards. “It's like giving them money,” he said.

But a class action lawsuit filed last month said fraudsters obtained gift card account numbers without talking to the buyers or recipients.

The lawsuit was filed by Ira Schuman, vice chairman of real estate services firm Savills and its co-branch manager in New York; he told me he bought four $500 Visa gift cards for people in his office in December 2022.

All four told him there was no money on the cards. He gave them other gifts of equal value.

The same thing happened when he bought the same kind of $500 gift cards again last year. That time, after another round of replacement gifts, he said he called Visa and spent about 45 minutes on the phone, but was told to fill out a form and that he would be notified in a few weeks if something could be done.

The time on the phone call meant he was late for lunch with a friend who was a managing partner of a law firm. “She says, 'Ira, I think this is a case,'” he recalled.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, states that the cards are sold in cardboard sleeves that thieves can open and reclose after copying the card numbers. The thieves then monitor a website that shows when money is being loaded and use the stolen account numbers to make purchases.

The lawsuit against Visa and two other companies alleges that they have “been aware of rampant card looting for years” but have not changed the packaging. Visa did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Schuman is married to Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Democrat from Westchester County. He said he didn't know — until I mentioned it — that she had sponsored the bill requiring retailers to post a notice about possible gift card fraud.

Weather

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The latest New York news

A new study paints a disturbing picture: Poverty has soared in New York. Here are some findings:

• The city's poverty rate was nearly double the national average, and there are signs the gap is widening. “We are going in the wrong direction,” said Christopher Wimer, co-author of the report.

My colleague Stefanos Chen writes that the findings are a major setback for the city, where extensive government support during the pandemic had helped stem job losses, rising housing costs and persistent inflation. The report was prepared by a research group from Columbia University and Robin Hood, a major philanthropic organization.

James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policy at the New School's Center for New York City Affairs, pointed to the city's lopsided job recovery. “Much of the progress made in reducing poverty and child poverty in pre-pandemic years has been undone by disparate unemployment rates by race and ethnicity,” said Dr. Parrott, who was not involved in the Columbia-Robin Hood report.

Mayor Eric Adams said last fall that the city had regained the 946,000 private sector jobs lost during the pandemic. But many of the new jobs are in lower-paying sectors, compared to those that disappeared during the pandemic.

The sector losing the most jobs, retail, pays about $54,000 per year. The industry that hires the most workers, home health care, pays workers much less: about $32,100 per year.

METROPOLITAN diary

Back in town

Dear Diary:

I landed at La Guardia Airport, excited to be greeted by the familiar skyline. I had been away for a year. It felt like a lifetime, but the rhythm of the city quickly came back to me.

When the car I was in got stuck in traffic on 31st Street in Queens, I decided to call.

“L & M Deli,” a familiar voice replied.