Scrip
From Free net encyclopedia
Scrip is any substitute for currency which is not legal tender. Scrip is a form of credit which was extended to any company employee who had accrued a salary. Historically scrip was designed to be used at the designated company store. There are documented instances where scrip was accepted at multiple companies and their specific communities.
Contents |
History
Traditionally, scrip has been thought of as what employees were "paid" with, particularly in the United States, where everything in a mining or logging camp was run, created and owned by the company. Workers would pay for meals and goods with scrip at a company store. While scrip was a de facto form of currency, employees were rarely able to convert it to actual cash. Using scrip as credit against an employees salary and placing enormous mark ups on goods in a company store, made workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing their "loyalty" to the company.
Scrip has also been created as a means of payment in times and countries where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns or occupied countries in war time. When U.S. President Andrew Jackson issued his Specie Circular of 1836, due to credit shortages, Virginia Scrip was accepted as payments for federal lands.
Scrip as a de facto form of currency within the setting of the mining or logging industry was discontinued around 1952. This was not due to the "right to seignorage" or the right for a country to mint currency without it being violated.
Scrip is also related to the stock market where companies pay dividends in the form of scrip rather than paying actual currency. It is also a written document that acknowledges debt.
Modern use
Scrip is now issued in the form of gift certificates, or gift cards. The two are essentially the same, except that the cards automate the checkout and accounting processes. Cards usually have a barcode or magnetic strip, which can be processed through a standard electronic credit card machine.
Cards do not have any value until they are sold, at which time the cashier enters the amount which the customer wishes to put on the card. This number is rarely stored on the card, but is instead noted in the store's database. The major exception is in many public transport systems, and library photocopiers, where a simplified system (with no network) stores the value only on the card itself (a stored-value card). To thwart counterfeiting, the data is encrypted, though not very strongly given the relatively low amounts of money involved. The magstripe is also often placed differently than on credit cards, so they cannot be read or written with standard equipment. Although Target Corporation, the largest seller of gift cards in the world Template:Fact, uses a simple system of printed numbers and a bar code, rather than the more secure magnetic strips.
Turtles Music, a music store chain in the US that has been bought out by Blockbuster Music, even used gift coins. This was relatively successful, given that coins are hard to counterfeit.
Tax exemption
Employers sometimes give gift cards and gift certificates as gifts, rewards or incentives to employees. Under U.S. tax law, gift cards, gift certificates, and other scrip of a certain value may not be taxable when given to an employee as a gift.
Metis Scrip issued in Canada, recognized Metis Indian title to land, seen wide spread fraud and theft. Most of the alloted land never made it into the hands of the rightful owners. Land scrip for the Metis was alloted in amounts based on the size of the family units. Today the theft of land from the Metis is an outstanding issue for the Metis peoples of particularly Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Criticism
While considered a "lazy" gift by some, modern gift scrip is generally intended to be given by persons who wish to get the recipient something thoughtful, but don't know what the person wants. Some point out that trading real money for scrip is rather pointless, as it then ties up that money until it is used, and usually may only be used at one store. VISA and American Express have issued pre-paid cards (not connected to any bank account) that can be used anywhere that accepts VISA credit cards or debit cards.
One disadvantage of gift script is that some stores will charge "maintenance fees" on the cards, particularly if they are not used after a certain period of time. Some even "expire", with the unused balance often returning to the store. In July 2004, Rhode Island and Washington passed a law prohibiting such actions against consumers in that state. Similarly, Massachusetts recently enacted a law mandating that the minimum expiration time of gift cards be seven years, and reinstating many cards that had not yet been used. However, many gift recipients fail to realize that although the card may have "expired", the money is still there, and may still be claimed. Recent laws in California, Connecticut and Hawaii prohibited the expiration of gift certificates. [1]
In most U.S. states, the cash value of gift cards or certificates that have expired become "abandoned property" that must be transferred by the merchant to the state treasurer within a prescribed time (e.g., 3 years). This is because the money deposited by the purchaser of the gift card does not become the property of the merchant until the gift card is actually used by the gift recipient. A merchant must also separately account for money received for gift certificates, and there may be stiff criminal penalties for failing to file annual reports and turn over the money that continues to belong to others. In effect, a merchant selling a gift certificate becomes a trustee of funds owned by the holder of the certificate. This also raises interesting questions of which treasurer should receive the money from a multi-state corporation, knowing it is unlikely to be claimed.
Collections and study
Scrip has gained historical importance and has become a subject of study in Numismatics or Exonumia
Other uses
- items carried on a pilgrimage in Roman Catholicism.
- a short Scripting language that is used in programming RT.
- a small bag carried at the waist (like a fanny pack) in the Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters.