Sainsbury's breaks silence over big change for 18 million Nectar card holders

Sainsbury's has made a huge change to Nectar loyalty scheme affecting 18 million customers after scammers accessed accounts and stolen points.
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Sainsbury's has spoken out over a big change for MILLIONS of its Nectar ca rd customers. Sainsbury's has made a huge change to Nectar loyalty scheme affecting 18 million customers after scammers accessed accounts and stolen points.

At the start of February, Nectar introduced a 'Spend Lock' which will freeze accounts until the customer has decided to spend their reward points. When fraudsters accessed accounts, there was little that could be done because customers were only alerted after their points had been spent.

In a number of cases, readers who had collected their points over the course of 2024 had their accounts drained just days before Christmas meaning they could not use their points for their festive shop. When enabled, the new security feature will require the account holder to give manual permission each time they attempt to redeem Nectar points.

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The lock can only be actioned or disabled by the account holder. The feature is being rolled out to all 18 million Nectar card members, and it is understood that not everyone will be able to access it yet, the supermarket giant has said.

This is Money first wrote about the recent spate of Nectar point theft in January 2024, after a reader contacted us to say that they had had lost 74,000 points, worth £370, to scammers. James said his account showed two small transactions in Hackney, east London, and three larger ones in a petrol station in Enfield despite living in Gloucester, and not being in London that day.

It prompted hundreds more readers to write in with similar thefts, including some readers who were told to report it to the police, despite it not being a recordable crime. A Nectar spokesperson said: "We’ve recently introduced a new spend lock feature to add an extra layer of security to our customer accounts, allowing customers to lock their points until they’re ready to spend them. Security is our highest priority and we have a range of measures which help to safeguard our customers’ points.”