e-theft of Tesco Clubcard points still happening

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As the miles and points market is almost entirely automated these days, the possibilities for losing your points to fraud are increasing.

Last year, for example, I wrote about how a lot of people had their Priority Club points stolen. If programmes offer instant redemption offers – Priority Club will let you redeem your points for an Amazon discount code which they email to you immediately – then fraud will be a risk.

Tesco had similar problems last year. A couple of weeks ago, a HFP reader, Mark, emailed me to say that he had recently been a victim. And, according to this moneysavingexpert report, it is still a major problem. If someone gets access to your Tesco Clubcard account, it is easy enough to order some e-codes for various retailers or to have paper vouchers sent to a different address.

It is not clear how people are getting access to Tesco accounts. It is possible that they are trying random email addresses and easy to guess passwords. Perhaps more likely, they are being harvested by spyware or people responded to a spam email and gave out their details.

The good news is that Tesco is reinstating stolen points very quickly when you report it.

There are two ways to help protect yourself against fraud.

The first is to use a service like AwardWallet to track your miles and points balances. With Tesco Clubcard, AwardWallet shows not only your current points balance but also your total of unredeemed vouchers. It is therefore easy to notice if someone redeems your vouchers fraudulently.

Secondly, use a secure password. If you have a lot of unspent vouchers sitting in your Clubcard account, treat its security with the same importance that you would your bank account.

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Category

Tesco Clubcard

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Susan says:

13 Jun13 June 07:46

Plus 1 for Award Wallet – it makes logging in for quick deals such as the Heathrow rewards 100 points in your following post a doddle particularly when one has several family accounts to remember. 300 HR points/avios in under a minute, thank you very much!
Mark says:

13 Jun13 June 08:16

I would have thought Tesco would provide a page to see what vouchers have been spent on what rewards, but I can’t see any way to do that (only for the ‘clubcard exchange’ ). This would make it easier to check for dubious transactions. Am I missing something?
- chris says:
  
  13 Jun13 June 09:48
  
  if you go to you vouchers page in your my account add this to the end of the link Vouchers/Home.aspx or click “my vouchers” on the menu side of the screen, and scroll all the way to the page it shows what you have spend your vouchers on, ill copy and paste mine as an ect (true it doesnt really say what you spend them on just “rewards”
  
  Vouchers you have used
  This table shows a breakdown of all your used vouchers.
  Statement issued in Value When used Where used Any add info
  November 2012 £1.50 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  November 2012 £5.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  November 2012 £5.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  August 2012 £4.50 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  August 2012 £5.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  May 2012 £3.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  May 2012 £5.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  February 2012 £3.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  February 2012 £5.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  February 2012 £10.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  November 2011 £3.00 23/11/12 CLUBCARD REWARDS _
  - Mark says:
    
    13 Jun13 June 09:57
    
    Ah, well spotted. I hadn’t scrolled down far enough.
    As you say, not brilliant, but better than nothing.
Paul says:

13 Jun13 June 08:24

I would recommend people get a password manager like KeePass (free), 1Password (££), mSecure (£), etc.

The software will generate random long complex passwords. The password file is encrypted. If you go for one of the paid options the software will sync your passwords between your desktop and mobile devices which I find immensely useful.

I
- iantowns says:
  
  13 Jun13 June 12:06
  
  I agree here.
  
  I think it’s important to point out that Award Wallet’s security isn’t proven, and it isn’t the same as using a proper password manager.
Rob says:

13 Jun13 June 11:18

I received about £300 of paper vouchers in someone elses names with my own clubcard vouchers a couple of years back. I was tempted to use them but decided it was probably fraud to do so and didnt really feel like getting arrested. That said it was bad form that Tesco mailed me someone else’s vouchers.
Scott says:

13 Jun13 June 11:52

Please be aware that there is a different risk with Award Wallet and similar systems – the more customers they have, the bigger target they become to the criminals.

They don’t publish the technical details of how they store our account information (it is perfectly safe to do so without risking exposure of data), so we don’t know if their system is intrinsically secure or not. We do know that they have a means of recovering or at least resetting users’ passwords, which implies a way to recover users’ data if Award Wallet’s defenses were to be compromised.

There are ways to keep things secure (Lastpass.com is a good example), but with these types of systems, there’s no way to recover a user’s lost password. Not the end of the world, but it can be perceived as poor customer service (even though the customer is at fault in that situation).
Matt says:

13 Jun13 June 17:42

I tried to change my clubcard password and gave up, says it all about how good the Tesco website is.
- Thomas says:
  
  14 Jun14 June 10:04
  
  Thought that was only my problem…. Can password change be done via telephone ?
YL says:

14 Jun14 June 16:16

Not very easy to find where to do it, I got a bit annoyed the other day when I try to change mine, but eventually find my way to do it.

You will need to change your Tesco.com’s password instead. Ignore the Clubcard section and the My account under Clubcard.

Instead, go to the Tesco.com main page, hover your mouse under Fresh food & Groceries, under Start shopping, you will see another My account there. Once you click in, you can see your Tesco account details and change your password there.

Hope this help.
Thunderbirds says:

15 Jun15 June 18:04

Alternatively it could be an inside job…