Cashing Out: The Pots of Money You Forgot You Had

It's pretty clear with the economic situation is that a lot of the companies which we know now are not going to be there after the coronavirus pandemic is done.

There are a few sick men on the High Street that always seem to be on the verge of going under. Department stores, like Debenhams. Mainstream travel agents and airlines. Bar & dining chains. It's always the same names, Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, some celebrity chef's restaurant chain, anything owned by Richard Branson or Phillip Green. But there are also going to be a lot of others as well.

It got me thinking about how much money I've got tied up in companies. I'm not talking about investments or pensions or anything like that. In case you missed it, I'm skint. No, I'm talking about things like gift cards, refunds, cashbacks. Little pots of money that are sitting in my account on some company's website.

It all mounts up to a decent pile of cash. And here's the problem: none of that is protected. If the company goes tits up then good luck getting it back. I had a ball-ache of a fight when my electricity supplier went bust and that was WITH protection under the law. Without it? You're money is as good as lost.

So over the last few weeks I've been working my way round all of these. The first step is to just take an inventory of where you are. Go round everyone you spend money with and just make a little list then check out your account. You'll be surprised. A good start is to go over your credit or debit card statements and have a look at where you spent money. Same with Paypal (or any of the other payment providers). Just go round them all and have a look at your account balances with them. If you are in credit with them, even by a couple of quid, get it out. That company may not be there in a few months and that cash is better in your pocket than being lost in the system.

Refunds are a good place to check. Usually you are going to get a refund paid back on the card you used originally. Make sure that refund actually happened. Sometimes they will credit the refund to your account, though. If it is then withdraw it. It is your money, they put it there because they know the chances are high you will spend it with them. It's worth keeping track of withdrawals and just double check it ends up in your bank.

Another area to look at is gift cards and vouchers. This is your money tied up in that company. Something like 6% of all gift cards never get used which translates as millions of pounds. Guess who loses that money? It isn't the company. They are winners, they've already received money for the card and the longer it takes you to spend it the better. Inflation means a £10 gift card bought last year buys you a lot less today than it did twelve months ago. Some gift cards have expiry dates, too. So if your gift card expires then they make even more on you. There are two things to remember with gift cards: they are YOUR money and their value decays as time passes. But there is also a third issue and that is the really important one right now: if the company goes bust then the gift card is worth zero.

I have a John Lewis credit card with a cashback deal on it which I use for my daily spending. Every four months they pay out the cashback. But here's the catch: they pay it out in John Lewis/Waitrose vouchers. I fucking hate Waitrose, you might as well just shop in Tesco and just throw an extra 10% of what you spent in the bin. But I actually quite like John Lewis, they're pretty good for some big ticket items like electricals.

However, John Lewis is also one of those "sick men" I mentioned at the start. They are always warning about losing money and being close to collapse. So having £150 mounting up in JL vouchers is a big risk and letting inflation erode their value is stupid. So, I spent a big chunk of them and if things seem to be sliding for them I'll spend the rest.

You have to kind of take a view on it. I doubt we'll see Amazon collapse any time soon so their cards are probably a safe bet. You can maybe hold on to these a little longer. Others, you might want to order something soon. But either way, inflation makes holding gift cards a really bad idea regardless of whose name is one the front. Same goes for goodwill payments, like when a company bungs you a few quid because they screwed an order up. A lot of payments will be in the form of a gift card or discount code and will be in the same boat.

So as a lesson for the future, here's some things to remember:

• don't buy gift cards. There's nothing socially awkward about giving cash. Nobody prefers to receive a gift card over cash. No-one.
• if you do, use a credit card to pay for it. At least there is a chance you can recover the payment if the company goes bust.
• if you get one, spend it as soon as you can to avoid inflation
• you can sell them. Card Yard buys and sells them for a fee (I think it was 10% on an Amazon card when I sold the one I got from work as a shitty Christmas bonus). You used to be able to sell them on Ebay as well but you have a high chance of being scammed

Another place I knew I had a lot of unprotected money was in Topcashback. I use it a lot for online purchases and over the last couple of years I've built up around £400 in my account. Again, that account is unprotected. I don't know what effect this whole situation is having on them but that money is still safer in my bank account than in theirs. Like gift cards, inflation is also eroding how much that is worth. Even with the current shitty savings rates the interest is still better than nothing. So, that is going to be moved from there to my savings account.

If you've been into matched betting then you've probably got pots of money scattered all over the place with bookies. There is nothing to bet on so I cleared mine out. I wasn't hugely enamoured with matched betting, I doubt I'll continue with it after this all recovers so not bothered about my accounts going dormant or whatever. I think I only made about £150 profit but the big thing was that I had a lot of my own cash tied up there to leverage it. Some bookies are going to go bust, there is no question of that. Take it out now.

Your money is your money. You need to be really proactive with it right now. Companies will go bust, companies that you use. Sure, cashing out your gift cards and clearing out accounts might be the push some need to fold. It's a tough decision but there was no question for me. I don't have the money to spare just so I can feel like I did the ethical thing.