Most of my Canadian Tire money went missing | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

.
Sorry to hear, Pwm.

Unfortunately, the hacking of reward accounts happens quite often. As a precaution, I never let the balance go much over $20.

Here's hoping your $600+ is recovered.

Fingers crossed,

Dean

Not sure if this applies to your situation but this is from the Terms & Conditions for the Triangle Rewards Program.

"Expiration of Electronic Canadian Tire Money
We may expire the eCTM in your Triangle Rewards Account in the event that there has been a period of inactivity of 18 months or more. For the purposes of this section, “inactivity” means that there has been neither a transaction in which you have collected eCTM, nor a transaction in which you have redeemed eCTM during the period in question."

OP said there were legitimate transactions on the card between Sept 27 and Oct 1, so I don't see that the problem can be expiration unless all those transaction were returned items which neither gained nor redeemed points.

Didn't something like this happen with PC Points a while ago? There might be a thread on that.

While I personally have a policy to not use an In House credit card or to collect gratuities on any bonus programs. I just have to ask.

How do use your accumulated funds? By the credit card number or?

By any chance can you turn on email or texting of each purchase through the credit card or using the CTC money?

And how is it that the victim is so far away from the crime? How is your information leaked?

Knowing the above would help put things in place to protect your bonus money.

I use Air Miles to collect rewards. Miles can be redeemed for cash and used to pay for purchase in places signed for the program, such as grocery store I frequent. The card itself is a string of numbers, magnetic tape and does not ask for PIN or password to redeem cash balance. It must be presented at the counter to cash rewards.

It has two security features Canadian Tire must be lacking: for every transaction redeeming miles it sends email to account holder. I can also lock my cash balance in an app, and until it is unlocked the card can't be used to redeem that balance, still can be used to collect miles.

Email keeps owner up to date with transactions, and account lock reduces window of opportunity for a person with fake card from few months I use to collect rewards to few minutes when I unlock my account and redeem them.

Someone should tell CT to take note what other rewards cards are doing to secure user balance.

-----
For anyone who has Air Miles card with substantial balance that can be used to redeem for cash, I strongly recommend enabling Air Miles account lock in AirMiles app.
-----

For reward cards, I suspect someone generates string of numbers that are valid card numbers, and runs balance check for these card numbers through employee at some store or even by accessing rewards program database. The card with substantial balance gets cloned and presented during the purchase.

For example, at my grocery store I can ask cashier to check balance on my Air Miles card, and if their card reader fails they just punch card numbers on keyboard- and read me my balance from the screen. With me it is legit transaction, but you get an idea how that can be used and abused.

A CC can be compromised and so can a rewards point card, its pretty common unfortunately.
Most of the time like a CC, as long as the fraudulent transactions that took place were obviously not a normal transaction for the holder, one will have no issue to have the pts replaced / reimbursed.