Am I obligated to honor gift certificates sold by previous owner after the business sale transaction?
I don’t envy your position. The previous owner should have given you an example of a valid gift certificate so you could at least try to authenticate those being redeemed. Since the establishment is under new owndership you could post a sign stating a new policy regarding GC redemption. It could read something like: “As of February 1, 2006 (or any date of your choosing) we will no longer be able to accept gift certificates that were purchased prior to December 1, 2005 (or whatever date you took over.) We apologize for any invonvenience this may cause.” You might also want to mention the new ownership of the establishment. Hopefully since you took over you have revamped the way your GC look so you can distinguish the old from new. You might also want to take into consideration that people may have just received the GC for Christmas and that would explain the huge redemption rate in the last few weeks. It’s one of those ‘darned if you do and darned if you don’t’ situations. Just make sur
