It is the latest chain to collapse and all the gift vouchers it sold at Christmas will soon be worthless.

The retailer with 106 shops will honour gift cards and vouchers until Valentine’s Day.

Paperchase will not be the last High Street business to go into administration this year. Officially if a retailer goes bust you are unlikely to be able to use a gift card or voucher. You are a creditor but you are at the back of the queue after HMRC and employees.

Paperchase leaving the High Street is a reminder that if you get a gift card or voucher you must spend them as soon as possible or sell them on.

If you are thinking of giving a voucher it is best to choose one that can be spent at multiple stores such as book tokens or One4All vouchers.

You also have to check when vouchers expire. In Ireland they have a five-year minimum expiry date but other parts of the UK you have to check when they expire. Some expire very quickly. Some like Apple Store and Disney vouchers last forever.

If you are unlikely to find anything you want from the retailer it may be time to sell them on. There are a number of online buyers of gift vouchers. You can either get about 80% of the face value or may be able to swap your voucher for one that you would be able to spend.

Cardyard.co.uk and cards2cash.co.uk are among the websites that buy gift vouchers. Even with these you have no time to waste, as the vouchers are worth less the nearer to the expiry date.

Vouchers earned by shoppers at supermarkets also have use-by dates. If you do not use your Nectar card for 12 months you lose all the points. You have two years to spend Tesco Clubcard points.

So get spending. Too many people lose the value of cards and vouchers because they do not get round to using them.
It is better to give them to a charity than to let the retailer make an extra profit because you do not spend vouchers or points.