RadioShack still says that they can’t identify the purchasers or the holders of the estimated $46 million worth of gift cards that are still out there for the chain. While there are still RadioShack stores, those are owned by a different company and won’t accept the old gift cards. The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, wants to make sure that gift card holders know that the Shack owes them money.

The AG now estimates that there’s 2.9 million unredeemed RadioShack gift cards out there, worth an estimated $46 million. That’s a lot of money: remember that the RadioShack brand, domain names, and intellectual property sold for only $26 million.

RadioShack is fine with letting gift card holders file a claim as creditors in the bankruptcy and get in line behind the creditors that kept the electronics retailer afloat in its last few years.

The request that the AG has made is pretty simple: they want RadioShack to notify people who have or
who might have purchased RadioShack gift cards about the bankruptcy proceedings. Or, in lawyer-talk:

Due process requires that these gift card purchasers are entitled to actual notice of
the confirmation proceedings so that they receive all required information and are given a
reasonable time for a response in order to meaningfully participate in the confirmation process in
this case.

Some of the missing gift card holders may have lost or destroyed those cards, and they’re now unable to claim them, which would make that cash part of the interest-earning funds of the respective state attorneys general. We don’t doubt that the AG’s office wants to make sure that RadioShack makes every effort to get money back to consumers before their lenders, but remember that AGs benefit from this arrangement.

STATE OF TEXAS’S MOTION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER COMPELLING THE DEBTORS TO PROVIDE ACTUAL NOTICE TO KNOWN CONSUMER PURCHASERS OF UNREDEEMED GIFT CARDS [Texas Attorney General]

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