When Nectar factors value £450 had been stolen from my account, I used to be advised to analyze myself

When Nectar points worth £450 were stolen from Usamah Ward’s account, the 62-year-old was horrified – but reassured when the company’s customer service said it would reimburse him in full.

The married father of two has collected Nectar points for 20 years. He had amassed more than 90,000 points in the loyalty card scheme by faithfully doing his shopping at the Whitechapel branch of Sainsbury’s and very occasionally at the store in the Beckton retail park, both of which are near his home and office in east London.

The construction administrator had not redeemed a single point in more than ten years. 

But checking his account in July, he saw almost half of them – worth £232.50 – had been spent at the Whitechapel and Beckton branches.

He immediately called Nectar’s customer service team who were very sympathetic and told him the points would be credited back to his account, with an additional 2,000 points added for the inconvenience.

But although Nectar issued Usamah with a new card and account ten days later, it did not reimburse him the stolen points. Nor did it transfer the 29,000 points, worth £145, left on his old account to the new one.

Nectar refused to return the points because they had been spent at two Sainsbury’s stores he had previously shopped in. It told Usamah he’d have to investigate himself and prove he’d been the victim of fraud.

Money Mail and This Is Money have been deluged with hundreds of letters from readers who have had their Nectar points stolen by criminals.

Sainsbury’s, which owns Nectar, says it will investigate and refund points which have been stolen.

But in a growing number of cases we see, Nectar is refusing to return points that were spent by crooks at stores where the victim has shopped in the past.

Around 18 million shoppers hold a Nectar account, which allows you to collect points as you spend in stores such as Argos and Sainsbury’s and on eBay that can then be used to buy items at these and other selected retailers.

Customers typically earn one point for every £1 spent, with some exceptions. Each point is worth 0.5 pence, so customers usually need to spend £200 to get £1 worth of Nectar points.

Shoppers don’t need their physical card to collect and redeem Nectar points – they can also use the app when in-store or an online account if shopping on a website.

This means that if fraudsters know your log-in details for your online account or app, or simply your account number, they don’t need to possess the physical card to gain access to your points.

In Usamah’s case, he was given the following email instruction by Nectar customer service: ‘We would like to inform [you] that the points [have] been used at Beckton and Whitechapel from where you have done shopping in the past. 

‘Hence, we would request you to kindly visit the same store to get the further investigation done [sic].’

When he visited the Whitechapel store, the manager used Usamah’s old Nectar number to find out the time of the transactions. He could then access the CCTV for when the points were spent.

He found that two men had used a bank card stored on a smartphone to make a 72p purchase at a self-service checkout machine.

When making the transaction, they picked the option on the screen that allows members who have forgotten to bring their Nectar card to input their account number instead, or by scanning a barcode generated ahead of time using Usamah’s account details.

The receipt for this small transaction will have shown Usamah’s total Nectar point balance. The two men then filled a shopping trolley with items worth a total of £52.50 and used Usamah’s points to pay for it. Another £180 of his points were spent in Beckton.

Finally, Usamah had proof that it was not he who had spent the points. However, he believes Nectar should have blocked the transaction in the first place because it was out of character.

‘I’ve been saving them for years. My kids are 29 and 26 now and the last time I redeemed Nectar points, they were in their teens. 

I cashed them in at the time to buy annual theme park passes. Since then, I was just leaving them to accumulate until I could put them to good use.’

Usamah told Nectar the results of the investigation using an online chatbot. He followed up with a phone call and sent two letters outlining his case to Nectar’s headquarters. 

Finally, after a three-month wait, Usamah received the points from his old account, but not those that were stolen.

In an email, he was told again that Nectar had found nothing suspicious and he wouldn’t be refunded. It added: ‘If you wish to take this further, I would advise you to contact your local police who can conduct their own investigation.’

After Money Mail got in touch with Nectar, it did admit it had made an error with Mr Ward’s points and he has since been refunded. 

A spokesman says: ‘We have contacted Mr Ward to apologise for his experience and arranged for his Nectar points to be refunded to his new account.’

But Usamah is not the only Nectar customer to find their fraud claims rejected.

In most cases we’ve seen, the points were spent miles away from a customer’s usual store, which makes it much easier to prove they were stolen. As Usamah found, it’s far trickier if the points are spent at your usual store.

Adrian Swain, 72, does his weekly food shop at his local Sainsbury’s in east London every Saturday morning at 7am without fail. 

The retired teacher has built up a substantial stash of 40,000 Nectar points, worth £200, which he had planned to spend on his granddaughter at Christmas.

But at the end of September, he noticed 8,000 points – around £40 – had vanished from his account. Someone had made a small purchase, worth one Nectar point, on his account before using 8,000 points to buy items worth £40.

Mr Swain says he had not lost his physical card or lent it to anyone else, as he lives alone. When he called Nectar customer services, he was also told there was very little they could do because it had happened in his local store.

But Mr Swain says there was ‘no chance’ it was him because a transaction was made on a Wednesday afternoon.

Despite being told there would be little Nectar could do, he was told to report his case to the police. Mr Swain decided to inquire about the theft during his usual Saturday shop.

‘All the people know me there, I go the same time every week,’ he says. Sainsbury’s employees suggested the store had encountered similar thefts. A senior employee said he would look at the store’s CCTV. 

But in the six weeks since the theft, Mr Swain hasn’t seen them or the footage. He says he has been bounced between Sainsbury’s and Nectar customer service teams.

Even after Money Mail contacted Sainsbury’s, it insisted the transactions were not fraudulent. Mr Swain says: ‘Why would I spend £1 and then use 8,000 points? It’s not me.’

Nectar did not answer questions about its policy on stolen points in customers’ local stores and why it had asked customers to investigate themselves.

Mr Swain said the saga had prompted him to cash in his remaining points and he now has a ‘very well-stocked’ cupboard.

He says he won’t stop shopping at Sainsbury’s, largely because it is his only local store, but he’ll stop saving his Nectar points and cash out when they hit £5.

Usamah will do the same and use his points more often, but he still has concerns over his data.

‘It seems pretty clear Nectar knows there’s a problem, but it’s not doing anything about it.’

• Have you been refused reimbursement of stolen Nectar points? Then email: [email protected]