More problems with points theft at Tesco and elsewhere

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• uk1 says:

  9 Feb9 February 07:18

  Its sad to read continually of people having different accounts hacked as this can be pretty upsetting. I also (on your recommendation) use Award Wallet and run it once a day. May I just put the alternative argument with respect to storing all passwords on-line rather than locally. There is very little inconvenience .. if any … for holding passwords locally. But if you do store on their servers and they do get compromised … and hacking their site would be very asttractive … you lose security on single registered programme in one hit. Everything. To me that seems a risk not even worth considering for a moment …… Just an opinion.

• takke says:

  9 Feb9 February 09:35

  For Tesco clubcard specifically -I think giving AwardWallet access doesn’t let them access your vouchers, as you need to put in numbers from your clubcard to see them…

• uk1 says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:22

  Yes … but I was addressing the general point about the risks of having passwords and accountndetail on the server rather than locally. I have 60 or so other accounts on Award Wallet that are not Tesco accounts and personally I try to reduce the number of things that can easilly go wrong rather than increase them needlessly. The Barclays issue today based on a single employee turned roque shows how things could go wrong. Storing your password and account details on AW servers means you are trusting a very small and unknown company and their staff with all of your precious details when you need not do so by simply storing them locally. If you have more than one computer you can copy your backup aw file to it.

  • Andrew says:

    9 Feb9 February 17:17

    I agree that everyone, me included, is putting a lot of trust in AW.

    One point worth considering is that if you don’t trust them I wouldn’t trust their ‘store locally only’ option. You have no way of knowing they’re not actually uploading your passwords to their server anyway.

• N says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:30

  Why do Tesco let someone spend £1000 of vouchers in store without presenting the card???

  As for AwardWallet, what uk1 said. They advertise they manage $860m worth of miles & points. That’s an attractive target for organised criminals.

  • Andy says:

    9 Feb9 February 10:49

    Exactly. Someone spent £900 of mine all at once. The agent said he knew it wasn’t me because the person had a different name, address, and clubcard number, WTF!

    • Andrew says:

      9 Feb9 February 11:50

      Yep that’s exactly what i was told! To use the vouchers a clubcard has to be presented, but not necessarily the one that earned the vouchers. Mailing the vouchers out with this system is like putting cash in the post, although my account was hacked. Can’t believe Tesco have such a weak IT system. Its madness.

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 11:38

    There is minimal risk with most schemes though. If someone hacks my BA account, they would need to redeem the Avios for a flight and fly immediately (same day) or otherwise I would see the points drop in AW and cancel the ticket. Criminals generally aren’t keen on paying fuel surcharges either!

• John says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:46

  Being cautious in the UK is for fools, I should have invested in Icesave 7 years ago, but I predicted something was not right, except everyone got their money back. I haven’t tried to earn very large Tesco balances as I had doubts about their security, but everyone got their vouchers back. I need to make up some frivolous claim and get some compensation for not taking enough risk.

• Andy says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:57

  Tesco made a right hash of giving me back my vouchers. They said the would be added to this (last) quarters statement. That never happened so I chased them up. Apparently it didn’t get auctioned so they said I would have to wait till May.
  I played my face saying I needed to buy some trip tickets to Aus and that I would probably be using them to buy Avios (which was a bit of a white lie to get them to hurry it up) . Next thing I know they action a transfer without my consent and turn all my points into BA Avios.
  I have now had to get it canceled but they now say that I will have to wait till May to use the vouchers again.
  I don’t want to wait that long because I want to get the VS 30% bonus, so it’s on the phone to them again on Monday.

• Thunderbirds says:

  9 Feb9 February 11:40

  I had £265 of clubcard vouchers stolen and spent at Tesco shops last year. Tesco replaced them immediately (but with the equivalent clubcard points) as they could see I hadn’t spent any of my vouchers on anything other than Avios or Flying Club miles . I had to wait another quarter to switch them to Avios. Ironically the Avios conversion had a bonus at that time.
  I try not to keep too many clubcard vouchers anymore. I simply convert to BA or Virgin as soon as a bonus comes up on either airline.
  None of my other Airline or Credit Card account balances were hacked. My paper vouchers have always arrived on time so it must have been a hack or inside job.

• Janeyferr says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:58

  You can choose to go “paperless” with Tesco clubcard,. You still get additional mailings of Coupons but the main, quarterly mailing that’s worth so much just appears online and you get a notification email.

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