You no doubt heard a lot about gift cards this past holiday season. They were a ragingly popular gift item, but consumer advocates, including this office, warned that there may be fees and limitations in the fine print.

Well, sure enough, in the Federal Trade Commission's first legal action in a gift card case, fees and limitations were the issue. The FTC set its sights on Kmart, which has agreed to give refunds and change its advertising to better disclose that there are some strings attached with its gift cards.

We found that for the most part, individual retailers (say Wal-Mart or Barnes and Noble or Lowe's) have the fewest limitations on their gift cards. The cards with strings attached tend to be "use anywhere" cards, such as gift cards from Visa and Mastercard, or gift cards to malls and shopping centers.