This guide designs, operates, and defends a stored value program, and advises a consumer holding a card. It begins with the classification that determines which regimes apply, because nearly every wrong answer in this field comes from applying open-loop rules to a merchant card or the reverse. It works through the federal expiration and fee restrictions and the exclusions that swallow much of them, state overlays, money transmission licensing, and the anti-money-laundering obligations attaching to prepaid access. It covers unclaimed property in detail — the priority rules, the state-by-state variation in coverage and dormancy, the data decisions that determine which state receives value, and the audits that reach back many years. Separate sections address breakage recognition and its tension with escheat, loyalty program design, retailer bankruptcy treatment, fraud controls, adjacent products, and the consumer advice that actually recovers money.