The mystery of the night-time Nectar thieves
R.B. writes: I read your report about stolen Nectar points and I am in the same boat. I had points worth about £ 100 and i ntended putting t hem towards buying a TV, but suddenly found I did not even have enough points for a CD.
COMPLAINTS about stolen Nectar points are streaming in. I asked Sainsbury’s – which owns Nectar – to look into what happened. The supermarket giant told me it had investigated and agreed there was ‘ suspicious activity’, so it had issued you with a new card and credited you with the missing points.
So far, so good. But would Sainsbury’ s be reporting the thief to the police? No, I was told :‘ Due to data protection, the customer is responsible for reporting the issue to the police .’
This is rubbish, but let’s go along with it and wonder whether Sainsbury’s would give you the thief’s details. Again, Sainsbury’s said no. It was up to you to convince the police to investigate a crime involving an unknown criminal, for which Sainsbury’s had compensated you.
Fat chance of that! All you could have told the police was that while you live in West Sussex, your Nectar points were spent at Sainsbury’s in Beckton, East London, where you have no links.
By refunding your points, Sainsbury’s had become the victim, so would Sainsbury’s itself contact the police? It refused to say, though I am sure it would have cheerfully announced this if it had any intention at all of tracking down and prosecuting the thief. It is easier to make victims fight for months to have their stolen points replaced, rather than take any real action. After last Sunday’s report of how Sainsbury’s claimed it was ‘normal shopping’ when a pensioner complained her points had been stolen and spent on nappies and a toy train, other readers have added their tales.
What stands out is that lots of the thefts are at night, when Nectar cannot be contacted. A cardholder in Brighton saw thousands of her points spent at night in Hertfordshire. A cardholder in Sunderland lost points that were spent in London. And one commented: ‘It was as if someone had a duplicate card.’ And this may be the explanation. Not long ago I reported how a Mail on Sunday reader near Belfast found his points had been spent at Argos, a store he had never visited.
Remarkably, the police investigated and the store handed over the shopper’s details. But when police interviewed the Argos shopper, he convinced them that the card and the points were his, and the case has been dropped.
So can two cards have the same account number? Or was the second card a clone, bought on the dark web? Perhaps Sainsbury’s can explain, though I doubt it.