After repeated attempts to phone Nectar last week (on hold forever) and several 'live chat' conversations this morning, I was getting absolutely nowhere in trying to sort out my points issue. Remember when I tried to redeem my points in Sainsbury's there was a 'problem' with my card? HERE
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The 'problem' was that I had a negative balance. It's obviously a mistake so it would be simple to fix, right? Nope! The 'live chat' person kept repeating I had a negative balance so that's why I couldn't redeem my points. I kept repeating that as I hadn't redeemed my points for a whole year, I couldn't have a negative balance and how is a negative balance even possible. It's not a debit/credit card!
They couldn't explain why it was negative. No idea at all. They asked me to confirm my last 2 redemptions and I discovered that in June 2022 someone (def not me!!) redeemed 8000 points. That's £40!! And that put me in a negative balance. Again I asked how can you have a negative balance? They had no idea.
I asked how could I have redeemed my points in January 2023 if I'd had a negative balance since June 22? Again, they had no idea.
I googled it and turns out a lot of folk have had this negative balance issue and it looks like 8000 points is a common amount to have been fraudulently redeemed. And no one seems to have resolved it.
When I'm dealing with customer services I try very hard to be polite. I worked in customer services in Goldbergs in Glasgow when I was a student, so I get it. But I was getting increasingly frustrated with their scripted "kindly try to understand" response to my questions. They even put me on hold on a live chat screen!!
I could see this was getting nowhere. I exited that live chat, opened another one and requested to close my account! It was done in 30 seconds. I've 'lost' my £22.50 to spend. It might even have been more than as I've been 'paying back' points on my account. I won't be using Sainsbury's for my monthly shop any more. I'll stick to Tesco and Lidl and get their loyalty vouchers.
It's annoying to have lost that amount but I'm sticking to my monthly supermarket budget so far 😊
If you have a Nectar card, check your account!
Thanks for the warning, I think I'll be spending my £40 before it too goes walkabout. And like you if there's any difficulty whatsoever I will very simply transfer my loyalty somewhere else. I can imagine how bloody frustrated you must have been. xx
ReplyDeleteSo frustrating!!! Every question I asked they just kept repeating 'you have a negative balance.' I know, I wanted to know 'why' cos I hadn't made it negative. Lesson learned in not checking it regularly and realising although it looks like if I'd spotted it straight away it wouldn't have made any difference! :-) xxx
DeleteThis is a very ridiculous situation isn't it, made worse by poor customer service. Good for you for taking your custom elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
Poor customer service seems to be on the rise. I don't think they care at all so I'll go elsewhere anyway :-) xxx
DeleteHow weird. Yet another way scammers have found to trick people out of money.
ReplyDeleteI would take it further and contact their head office, explain it all again and keep at them until it's resolved. In the past I've found the phrase "I feel strongly that I cannot recommend your company to family and friends" has yielded results; use the words very disappointed, not the standard you expect, ben a loyal customer for many years, read of others' problems. won't be using them again. Let them know you're taking your business elsewhere and name Tesco and Aldi. You could also allude to talking to the press - Twitter/X, local paper - they take things like that seriously; threaten trading standards too. It all takes time and effort, but don't let them get away with it.
ReplyDeleteAnd ... telling them that you are a blogger and are mentioning this on your blog and keeping your readers informed of the outcome is always a good move. Perhaps too late now that you have closed your account, but hopefully this might help someone else.
DeleteFunnily enough I have emailed them and commented on their Facebook page! I wonder if I'll get a reply. To be honest I've been disappointed with the Nectar scheme since they halved the value of the points. 100 Tesco clubcard points are worth £1 whereas 100 Nectar points are worth 50p. Tesco here I come! :-) xxx
DeleteHow very annoying 😑. Well done you for not loosing your temper and just calmly closing your account. I think I would email customer services though. They have a serious issue to sort out there.
ReplyDeleteOn a happier note, I activated my clubcard double points voucher today and found that, as they are currently doing double points for everyone, it resulted in double, double points 😁. I'm hoping it isn't a mistake. As it appears on my app, my £76 spend has earned me 2 lots of 152 points. A big spend for me stocking up on loo roll, toothpaste and other exciting items. 🙄
That would be 'losing' 😲🙄 Oh to be able to edit comments after, rashly, hitting publish 🤣
DeleteYep, I emailed them. No response as yet! Well done on getting double double points. As I've only been using Tesco for small top ups I haven't got a lot of points or vouchers yet. But I will start doing my monthly shop there in March :-) xxx
DeleteHow incredibly frustrating and very bad customer service. I do hope they resolve it for you and pronto. xx
ReplyDeleteI doubt it will be resolved and I've closed my account now. My son reckons it was an AI live chat/chat bot that was just giving me standard answers and not a person actually responding to my questions. Scary stuff! :-) xxx
DeleteThat is so frustrating! However walking away is sometimes the best solution, I wish I’d had that mindset earlier in life when I would wear myself out trying to resolve every last problem.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was really annoyed at what I thought I'd 'lost' but yep, walking away is the answer for me here. I never had the 'money' in my hands any way so it's not really lost :-) xxx
DeleteI haven’t shopped hardly at all in Sainsbury’s since March 2020 as we went to online deliveries and Sainsbury’s was awful. We have a small branch round the corner but the prices are higher than the main shops. I always remove my custom from unsatisfactory retailers as I feel they don’t deserve my custom and there are plenty of others who will be happy to have my money. Catriona
ReplyDeleteMy Sainsbury's online deliveries are usually ok but my DIL has had terrible problems with hers - rotten onions, weird substitutions etc. But they're not getting my business any more as Tesco give me more points :-) xxx
DeleteSo sorry that this happened to you. One would really think it would be a very easy fix. I would have closed the account as well.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I think there's a bigger issue with Nectar that they're not acknowledging. But closing my account draws a line under it for me :-) xxx
DeleteThe BBC radio programme You and Yours did a feature on this around 2 weeks ago. They spoke to people that had saved quite large amounts for special occasions and found that they'd been stolen. The points were used miles away.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting!! Clearly Nectar have a security issue with accounts being hacked that they're ignoring. That's even more frustrating as clearly I won't have been the first person to complain about it. Easy solution for me is just don't use them any more! :-) xxx
DeleteMy parents who are both in their 80s had their Nectar points stolen early last year but they were replaced on a new card after phoning up. I also heard the Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ programme recently and it was a similar case to that of my parents. Nectar definitely have a problem with points being stolen. I usually spend mine as soon as I hit the £5 mark but that’s not very often as I tend to do most of my shopping in Aldi.
ReplyDeleteJanette xx
There's definitely a known security issue with Nectar then which makes it doubly frustrating that I was given the run around. I'm glad I've cancelled my account :-) xxx
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