Rachel* had diligently saved her Nectar factors all through 2024 and was trying ahead to spending them on a bottle of Remy Cognac for herself at Christmas.
By likelihood, the tipple was on provide in her native Sainsbury’s which means her 10,000 factors, value £50, would have coated the complete price.
However simply days earlier than Christmas, she observed that her whole Nectar stability had been utilized in a retailer lots of of miles away from her dwelling.
Sadly, Rachel just isn’t alone. Throughout the course of December, This Is Cash heard from practically 100 readers who had their Nectar balances emptied forward of Christmas.
Now we will reveal that 12million factors value greater than £60,000 have been stolen from our readers previously 12 months, starting from small quantities value £2.50 as much as £1,000.
Sainsbury’s, which owns Nectar, has fortunately refunded stolen factors usually
Christmas store ruined by thieves
Rachel celebrated her birthday on 17 December however it took two days for her to understand that the criminals had carried out their very own celebratory store.
She acquired three emails that confirmed practically 10,000 factors had been spent in Stanmore, practically 200 miles from her dwelling in Yorkshire.
After she received in contact with Nectar to alert them of the theft, her card was swiftly blocked however it meant that she was left with none factors simply days earlier than Christmas.
Her factors had been refunded on Christmas Eve however by that time, Rachel says, she had gone to see her sister and she or he was unlikely to obtain the substitute Nectar card.
It meant that she couldn’t use the £50 value of factors she had saved and as an alternative opted to buy at Tesco.
Rachel says that whereas she will not cease purchasing in Sainsbury’s, the saga has brought on pointless stress.
‘My husband died in 2022, he’d not been effectively for fairly a number of years. I form of ran the home and took plenty of the selections and I ran the funds.
‘However now I am by myself, it takes away my confidence,’ she says. ‘What worries me now could be how my Nectar factors had been stolen.’
Throughout December it seems criminals ramped up their spending within the run as much as Christmas utilizing ill-gotten Nectar numbers.
Christine, who lives in Nottingham, mentioned she found 500 factors value £2.50 had been spent in Birmingham simply two days earlier than Christmas.
Three hours after she alerted Nectar, she found an additional 39,500 factors value £197.50 had been spent in Taplow.
‘For sure I used to be extraordinarily upset, this was my Christmas purchasing cash,’ she says.
Christine had been saving the factors for ‘effectively over a 12 months’ and had beforehand purchased loads of increased worth objects, together with a vacuum cleaner together with her factors.
‘I do save them for that function to purchase one thing I really need, and this 12 months I had saved them for my Christmas store.’
Nectar refunded Christine’s factors inside every week, however it meant that she needed to forego the £200 she had anticipated to save lots of on her Christmas store.
Readers lose THOUSANDS to criminals
Rachel and Christine symbolize simply a variety of Nectar prospects who’ve had their factors stolen, and never simply at Christmas.
That is Cash first wrote in regards to the latest spate of Nectar level theft in January 2024, after a reader contacted us to say that they’d had misplaced 74,000 factors, value £370, to scammers.
James* mentioned his account confirmed two small transactions in Hackney, east London, and three bigger ones in a petroleum station in Enfield regardless of dwelling in Gloucester, and never being in London that day.
It prompted lots of extra readers to jot down in with comparable thefts, together with some readers who had been advised to report it to the police, regardless of it not being a recordable crime.
Sainsbury’s, which owns Nectar, has fortunately refunded factors usually, though in some have urged that they won’t achieve this as a result of the theft has occurred of their native retailer.
Over the course of the 12 months, our investigations have revealed worrying patterns which have made it simpler for criminals to proceed to steal factors.
Consequently, our readers have misplaced a cumulative 12,532,655 Nectar factors between January 2024 and the primary week of January 2025, equal to £62,663.28.
Some 11.3million of these occurred between August 2024 and the primary week of January 2025 in response to our heaving inbox.
Many query the dearth of safety or authentication for Nectar playing cards, which means criminals can theoretically duplicate a card’s bar code.
Equally, there is no such thing as a cap on the quantity of factors that may be spent at any given time or authentication wanted.
It is understood that Nectar has programs in place to detect uncommon exercise, however that is often after the fraud has occurred.
We additionally found proof of secret teams buying and selling Nectar prospects’ reward factors.
The Nectar Fb group can also be affected by prospects who’ve had factors stolen, and they’re typically essentially the most favored feedback on posts made by the loyalty scheme.
The latest got here from a buyer who had their factors stolen earlier than Christmas and mentioned Nectar took ‘approach too lengthy’ to refund.
‘It seems it’s a profitable enterprise, stealing factors and promoting them overtly on the web, which exhibits how little safety is utilized to our accounts!’ they added.
We have now requested Nectar a number of occasions to clarify what is going on and whether or not the safety system must be overhauled to raised defend prospects.
In response to our questions on prospects who misplaced out forward of Christmas, a spokesman mentioned: ‘The safety of our buyer accounts is our highest precedence and we’ve got a variety of measures which detect, and in lots of circumstances stop, fraud.
‘Nectar is among the UK’s greatest loyalty schemes, with over 23 million members, and the proportion of these impacted by fraud every year is small.
‘For any prospects who suspect they could have been a sufferer of fraud, we purpose to place it proper as quickly because it’s dropped at our consideration.
‘We advised the 2 buyer examples shared with us by That is Cash how sorry we had been for the inconvenience this brought on them and their lacking factors had been returned rapidly, together with on the identical day on Christmas Eve in a single case.’
Have you ever had your Nectar factors stolen? Get in contact editor@thisismoney.co.uk
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