About the purchase of large amounts of gift cards; it’s not as uncommon as you’d think. I worked at a grocery store customer service office and it wasn’t uncommon to have people buy thousands of dollars in gift cards as giveaways or prizes for events. No questions asked, really. The store was very eager to pocket that money.

There should certainly be more checks and balances around that. Perhaps a personal limit, and requiring a registered business to be the purchaser above that. Or perhaps a redemption system.

But the incentive is not there for the stores. It’s of course better to sell gift cards than the equal amount of merchandise for them