history: Traditionally, scrip has been thought of as what employees were "paid" with, particularly in the United States, where everything in a mining or logging camp was run, created and owned by the company. Workers would pay for meals and goods with scrip at a company store. While scrip was a de facto form of currency, employees were rarely paid with it. Using scrip as credit against an employees salary and placing enormous mark ups on goods in a company store, made workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing their "loyalty" to company. Scrip has also been created as a means of payment in times and countries where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns or occupied countries in war time.while considered a "lazy" gift by some, modern gift scrip is generally intended to be given by persons who wish to get the recipient something thoughtful, but don't know what the person wants. Some point out that trading real money for scrip is rather pointless, as it then ties up that money until it is used, and usually may only be used at one store. VISA has been issuing pre-paid cards (not connected to any bank account) that can be used anywhere that accepts VISA credit cards or debit cards (American Express has also done this), although some view this as even more pointless, as cash works almost anywhere.