Customers with One4All gift vouchers are warning that the cards have charges that slowly erode the card's value after 18 months.
One4All, as the name suggests, is a gift card that can be used in multiple stores across the UK and Ireland - more than 55,000.
These include ASOS , H&M and John Lewis.
But people with older One4All cards are speaking out about a little-known caveat.
If you have one of the cards for more than 18 months, the company takes 90p a month off the card as an 'inactive balance charge'.
This will continue every month until the value left is £0.
One4All customer Deirdre O'Shaughnessy fell in value by 60 percent three years after she bought it, according to the Irish Daily Mail today.
Have you lost out on gift card money because your voucher has expired? Let us know in the comments below.
She paid €50 (£41.80) in 2019, and the card value is now £15.97 - and she has never spent a penny in a store.
Cardholder Tony Kavanagh also said the value of his card had been eaten away to nothing.
"Same experience, and worse - zero balance," he said. "I stopped buying them as gifts when I found out."
Customers have to put at least £10 on a One4All card, and each one is capped at £120.
Small print on the One4All website says: "A monthly inactive balance charge of £0.90 (or the credit balance on the card, if lower) will be charged after the card has been in issue for 18 months.
"This charge will start to be applied from the following month and will continue until such time as the balance on the card is zero and this agreement is terminated."
More than £183million was unclaimed on One4All cards at the end of 2019, according to its accounts.
That is up from £151.37million the year before.
One4All has been approached for comment.
Consumer champion Martin Lewis issued a warning about gift cards last year - saying many vouchers end up going out of date before people use them.
This is because most will have an expiry date - and if you don’t write remember to use your gift card before this point, you lose your cash.
Lewis also explained how the money on your gift card is not protected if a business goes bust.
When a company falls into administration, the company behind this process can decided to stop accepting vouchers at any point.
Lewis said: “Understand they are not protected.
“If the firm goes bust, the money is gone. Many of them also have use-by dates on them that people forget to use.
“Personally, I’m in favour of cash - it’s the most flexible gift voucher there is.
“If you’re going to give a gift voucher, think about: is this company safe?”
