An estimated $570 billion is loaded onto gift and prepaid cards each year in the United States
Holy crap, I had no idea that so many people buy these stupid things. My mother used to buy them. She’d give Visa $5 in order to give me a $100 gift card. I told her she was wasting her money and she should just write me a check but she just kept doing it.
Based on the fee schedule at this site, that 5% fee is normal. That means these companies are making $28.5 billion per year providing no useful service at all.