Gift card issuing banks have gone and pissed off Conn. State Senator Tom Colapietro and he’s on the warpath. I wasn’t aware of this but Connecticut acutally passed a state gift card law with some teeth. The 2005 law prohibits dormancy or inactivity charges on ANY gift cards, including open-loop ones. What is happening now is that Federally chartered banks are issuing open-loop Visa and Mastercard gift cards in Connecticut and claiming the law doesn’t apply to them because they are not state chartered.

So he’s enrolling the states Senators and Congress people to support federal legilation to make federally chartered banks obey state laws on gift cards. It isn’t exactly a full federal ban on these type of fees, but it is a start. (article)