Home Depot Refuses to Redeem Gift Cards with Less Than $10 Balance for Cash Value, Class Action Lawsuit Claims

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims that Home Depot has refused to issue to consumers the equivalent cash value of gift cards with a balance of less than $10, in violation of California law.

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The 14-page complaint contends that Home Depot has run afoul of a California law that gives consumers in the state the right to redeem gift cards issued after January 1997 with a value of less than $10 their equal cash value.

The plaintiff, a California resident, received a Home Depot gift card in January 2025 and initiated an in-store transaction with the belief that any small balance remaining on the gift card could be redeemed as cash, the case shares. The total of the consumer’s purchase did not exhaust the entirety of the gift card, which had a balance of less than $10, yet the Home Depot refused to issue the plaintiff the cash they were legally entitled to, the suit alleges.

According to the complaint, the California gift card law was designed to prevent consumer losses from unused gift cards with a small balance. Per the class action lawsuit, consumers have two choices in the event they have a remaining balance of less than $10 after a transaction:

“They can use the remaining balance to engage in a further transaction partly funded by the gift card and partly funded by money out of their pockets. Alternatively, they leave the store with a gift card they cannot redeem, leaving the unredeemed balance in Defendant’s possession.”

Per the lawsuit, Home Depot does not regularly make its employees aware of or enforce the California gift card law, as “[t]he pay-more-or-forfeit strategy inures to Defendant’s benefit.”

The plaintiff did not want to purchase any items from Home Depot in addition to those she had already bought, and in retrospect, the consumer says in the lawsuit, she “would not have visited the store and purchased items there in the absence of such promise.”

The Home Depot class action lawsuit looks to cover all consumers in California who have or have had a Home Depot gift card with a balance of less than $10.

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