Petty sister-in-law gives a woman an empty gift card for her birthday, stirring up years of gifting drama in the family

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jun 24, 2026 5:00 PM EDT

What should you get your sister-in-law for her birthday?

I'll tell you what you should NOT get her: an empty gift card. 

There are a few gifts that are just downright insulting to give to someone. A $3 candle, an unfinished coffee shop punch card, or a gym membership are some of the most well-known "bad gifts," but the sister-in-law in this Reddit post from r/familydrama just reached a new low in the gift-giving department. 

After the family agreed to "do gifts" this year, the first birthday date came looming around the corner. Unsure of how to gauge the price and quality of the gifts they were all expected to hand over, this sister-in-law cut corners most embarrassingly. Without as much as an apology, she gave her SIL a blank gift card to Sephora. With exactly $0 on this piece of black and white striped plastic, the SIL unwittingly went up to the check-out register and publicly embarrassed herself, insisting that there was at least a little value on the card she was given on her birthday, but boy was she wrong. 

This not only stirred the pot in the family group chat, but it also blew up online as readers and witnesses marveled at the audacity of giving someone an empty gift card. Apparently, there is a gift worse than a thoughtless gift card: a thoughtless gift card with no actual money on it. 

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    via Getty Images (Georgijevic)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My in-laws gave me a gift card for my birthday... with no money on it.
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  • My birthday was at the very beginning of the year. My sister in law stated that she wanted to exchange gifts this year for the 4 of us (my fiance/her brother, me, her, her husband). I was
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  • a bit reluctant since I don't really celebrate birthdays and if I can be honest, I've received gifts from them before and they sucked. One year I
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  • got clothes I couldn't wear and a basket with stuff from Ross that still had tags on it. Specifically, one of the items was a cranberry scented candle (I've
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  • explained countless of times that I don't like fruit scented candles and she told me before that she hates cranberry scented candles). To me, it was a give away basket. Stuff she didn't want.
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  • Anywho, I didn't receive said gift card until it was HER birthday, in April. Literally, the day of her own party, her husband passed me a Sephora bag with the gift card in it. It was an odd
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  • exchange and it felt like they didn't actually want to give it to me but didn't know whether I would be getting them something or not. I had not. My
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  • birthday is first of the group and I hadn't received anything prior to her own.
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  • The whole exchange is so awkward, and this is why I don't like doing forced gifts. If you don't have a good gift in mind, just don't get a gift!

    I'm the type of person who, when I want something, I'll buy it for myself or save up for it. Gifts often end up as clutter pieces in my house that I can never get rid of, and the stress of receiving a useless gift that I don't want (or need) gives me more birthday anxi3ty than the dusty 1994 next to the date on my driver's license. 

    Gift cards are usually a great fallback for this sort of thing, but without money attached to it, what is that even worth?

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    via Getty Images (Georgijevic)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I was excited. I love Sephora and honestly, ANY money that can help at Sephora is GREATLY appreciated (iykyk). A few weeks go by, I didn't
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  • have time to go shopping right away, and when I go to use the card with a basket full of stuff... the cashier tells me there's no money on the card.
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  • I'm confused. She's confused. We look into it and there WAS money put on the card the day of my sister in laws birthday, but somehow the money was used. Upset. Embarrassed.
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  • Devastated. I was. I told my fiance and he immediately called her to let her know what happened. And that was seemingly for nothing.
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  • They confirmed that they put money on the card and that was it. No apology for the issue. No offer to send the money in cash (it was $50 btw and they both make good money). I didn't even
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  • receive any contact about it at all. In fact, they told my fiance that "it is what it is" and that they wouldn't have said anything about it at all if it happened to
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  • them. I was hurt. Because I knew that if it was her brother, he would've at LEAST got an apology.
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  • Weeks pass and I heard nothing. She typically texts my fiance multiple times a week and didn't reach out at all. He finally calls her to let her know he didn't appreciate her not reaching out to me or
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    via Getty Images (Georgijevic)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • trying to rectify the situation and she told him she planned to say something in person next time we see each other. We don't see each other often. He called it out as bs.
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  • She texted me later after their call saying that she would hate for me to feel a way and she didn't mean to not say anything this whole time, etc. I didn't respond. I haven't responded. To me, they
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  • obviously do not care. For ME, I would've been embarrassed giving someone a gift card or any gift that did not work out and immediately would've rectified
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  • because I genuinely wanted them to have the gift. If I couldn't replace it monetarily at the moment, I would commit to doing it when I could and the VERY LEAST
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  • would've apologized upon hearing about it. Am I wrong for not wanting to have a conversation about it after hearing how they believe I shouldn't have mentioned it at all??
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  • bopperbopper Keep that Sephora gift card and give it back to her for the next occasion.
    via bopperbopper
  • Adainae Sometimes people give us the gift of telling us exactly who they are. We should reply to that gift my believing them.
    via Adainae

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