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State AG Cautions Rite Aid Customers
With pharmacy chain in bankruptcy, gift cards are expiring
By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
May 13, 2025
Posted in: State & Region
The Downtown McKeesport Rite Aid location closed in 2023. (Tube City Almanac file photo)
Pennsylvania’s attorney general is advising Rite Aid customers they have until June 6 to use any gift cards, coupons or reward points they have accumulated.
In addition, said state Attorney General Dave Sunday, the stores will stop accepting returns or exchanges on June 4.
Barely seven months after exiting federal bankruptcy protection, the Philadelphia-based pharmacy chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection again last week.
Financial analysts have said that Rite Aid, like competing chains Walgreens and CVS, expanded too quickly and are now struggling with declining prescription reimbursements from insurance companies and the federal government.
The chains also face increased competition from Walmart and Amazon, business experts have said.
Rite Aid first filed for bankruptcy in October 2023, citing $4 billion in debt, including the cost of settling lawsuits over filling opioid prescriptions for customers who became addicted to the drugs.
The chain emerged from bankruptcy in September 2024 after closing 500 stores — including one on Lysle Boulevard in Downtown McKeesport — and securing $2.5 billion in financing to keep operating.
A store in Glassport also recently closed.
In the latest bankruptcy filing, Rite Aid said it plans to sell or close all of its remaining 1,200 locations, citing debts and potential liabilities of almost $10 billion.
Rite Aid said that it was unable to keep shelves stocked at many of its locations due to lack of credit from suppliers.
Locally, Rite Aid has stores on Walnut Street in Christy Park, Long Run Road in White Oak and Homeville Road in West Mifflin.
“I am encouraging Rite Aid customers to make returns and exchanges, and redeem gift cards and rewards points as soon as possible,” Sunday said. “These deadlines are approaching fast, and accrued points and gift card balances will soon become valueless.”
The deadlines were established by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, the attorney general’s office said. Consumers must use their Rite Aid gift cards either online or in stores. After June 6, Rite Aid gift cards will no longer be accepted and will have no remaining value on the cards.
Potential returns are still subject to Rite Aid’s refund and exchange policy.
Sunday’s office said that any consumers who experience issues redeeming their Rite Aid points, coupons, unused gift cards, or with returning merchandise to Rite Aid should submit a complaint to the state Bureau of Consumer Protection online, or they may contact the state Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-441-2555.
Originally published May 13, 2025.
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