If Santa put a gift card in your stocking, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli is urging you to spend it. According to the financial watchdog\u2019s office, which monitors unused card balances, there are more than $55 million in gift card funds floating around NYC, much of that money dating back to purchases made in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpend those gift cards you get this holiday season, so they don\u2019t become unclaimed funds,\u201d DiNapoli said in a press release. \u201cAlso consider taking the extra step of registering the gift card so if you do forget about it, it\u2019s easier to return those funds to you. No one wants to lose money, and we want to make sure if you do, you know you can always claim it by going to our website. Funds sent to our office never expire and are free to claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to DiNapoli\u2019s office, of the $55.5 million in unused balances, Manhattanites have the most gift card money \u2014 $21.8 million, followed by Brooklyn residents with almost $13 million. Queens and the Bronx have an excess of $9.7 and $9.1 million, respectively, while Staten Island totals in at just under $2 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter five years of inactivity, retailers are required by law to turn unused gift card balances over to the State Comptroller\u2019s Office of Unclaimed Funds (OUF), where the money can always be claimed,\u201d the press release said. \u201cIn 2025, DiNapoli\u2019s office recovered more than $28 million in unused gift cards that New Yorkers can claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the comptroller\u2019s office can send a notification only if it knows whom to look for \u2014 meaning the consumer must register the card with the retailer or if the gift card can be traced back to a credit or debit card.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the owner\u2019s information is not known to a New York retailer, it will report the card details, such as card number and balance, which can be used by the recipient to claim the balance,\u201d the release noted.<\/p>\n
Unclaimed funds can be claimed at any time online, by phone at 800-221-9311 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, by mail, or at in-person events, which are held throughout the year across the state. Claims are always free to file, and funds never expire.<\/p>\n
DiNapoli reminded gift card recipients to read the fine print on the card for details about any fees and expiration dates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Santa put a gift card in your stocking, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli is urging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-111840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}