back to article Sainsbury's techie jailed for loyalty card scam

An IT manager at Sainsbury's has been jailed for fraud offences connected to the supermarket's Nectar loyalty card scheme. James Stevenson, 45, from Muswell Hill, London, transferred millions of Nectar loyalty points to accounts which he controlled. Stevenson ran the scheme for years and was caught with points with a …

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  1. Uk_Gadget

    Sainsbury's is abandoning tape

    Makiin Lise Taste Bitter!

    Another Fail Criminal - Do not bite the hand that feeds you!

    Why do crims get special treats like not starting your Jail Sentance till after xmas... Excuse me Mr Mugger, will you come back in January to assault/mug/kill me as it would be terribly disruptive for my Christmas Vacation?

    1. Gilbert Wham

      Hopefully

      The Justice System is run this way *specifically to make you cross*

      Also, to spoil christmas.

      1. streaky

        Making you cross

        Also because the tories ate the budget so what do you expect?

    2. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Christmas

      "Why do crims get special treats like not starting your Jail Sentance till after xmas... "

      Because just like everywhere else the criminal justice system has loads of people on leave for the last couple of weeks of the year and therefore anything that keeps the workload down is a good thing.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    He'd been under observation for a long time then...

    one assumes that the accounts with no spending and lots of points flagged up a long time ago,meaning they were just waiting.. funny thing is he earnt more in wages from them whilst waiting than he nicked, if only they'd have dissmissed him as soon as it occured....

    Fail obviously.

  3. bexley

    sneaky bastard

    dont blame him for trying though

    1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      WTF?

      Shut up you dipstick!

      As IT techs we are put in positions of privilege. We are trusted to ensure we look after the data that drives huge corps and they expect us to have integrity and ensure we don't get do something fucking stupid like this?!

      I do blame him and I hope the greedy c**t gets all he deserves. Banged up the slammer, to quote a phrase by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson!

  4. jerehada
    Thumb Down

    bit harsh

    He/she Stole 8k sounds a bit harsh to me victimless crime. Can think of many in society that deserve a good stretch that get much less.

    1. David Precious

      Victimless?

      Victimless crime? I'd say the victim is Sainsburys, from whom he stole ~8k. Yes, it's a large company and the effect of that isn't going to be as big as if he'd robbed little 73-year-old Edna of her life savings, but he was still stealing money, in a continuous and pre-meditated fashion (i.e. it wasn't a spur of the moment act of desperation or any such thing).

      Certainly won't argue that there's plenty in society who deserve the punishment more than he does, though!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      £8K

      No. It was £80K, but he spent £8K of it.

    3. LaeMing
      FAIL

      That is like saying shoplifting is a victimless crime.

      In the end it is the honest customers that pay, via higher mark-ups required to cover the costs of theft.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Repay?

    I'm puzzled by all this repaying business. You never hear of it in the case of some scrote who's banged up for serial burglary.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    How'd he get caught?

    How they caught him would be the really interesting part of the story. He obviously screwed up somehow.

    1. Jolyon

      Caught by the fuzz

      I don't suppose it is in anyone's interests that we all sit around imagining how he might have got caught and how we might avoid the same mistakes - last thing we need is to come up with a load of theories we can't resist putting into practice.

      My guess is he . . .

      Drat.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How they caught him?

      He was spending it on groceries - same guy turns up in the shop repeatedly spending nothing but Nectar points (vs average customer who probably cashes in a few £10 vouchers). Even if he was travelling to a few different shops in the area it wouldn't have taken long for someone to flag it up as strange.

      Strikes me he'd not really thought this through - getting the points was easy, but impossible to launder them.

    3. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      How?

      I would have thought a Nectar account with £80K of points on it stood out like a whatsit amongst a bunch of thingies. That's not £80K of spending, but £80K worth of points.

      It's amazing how so many people with similar scams get caught out the same way. Too damned greedy. Think Richard Prior in that Superman movie.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    justice...

    a man who killed his 7 week old baby daughter in a hospital by shakeing her and forcing her face down into the bed gets out of jail today..

    he spent a total of 9 months in prison of a 30 month sentence....

    obviously sainsburys is more of a victem?

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Tabloid Reader?

      With that spelling and grammar we can only assume can't we.

      1. Hollerith 1

        But his point is still valid

        In our culture, property has always loomed larger than human life. Abuse, torutre, killing, murder, are never deemed as weighty as theft, fraud, stealing Government records, etc.

        A sweeping statement and I feel the better for it!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Flame

        @Grease Monkey

        Sorry to disappoint you, but alas, no, I am not a tabloid reader.

        I am actually someone who has been slapped with the Dyslexia brush and on occasion do not have time to shove everything through a spell checker. I had enough of it through school being treated like an idiot because of my inability to spell and can do without people like you carrying it on. Yes, there were spelling mistakes and I missed out a few capital letters but so what .Was it that bad it was totally incomprehensible?

        One of the things I have learned in life from people that make judgments on people based on a few lines of text is that they are usually the type of person who thinks they are better than most based on inconsequential issues. Are you that shallow? I think the title that people get for it these days is a bully, but I have a preference, "asshole"

        So, just for your benefit as you appear to be incapable of deciphering a few miss-spelt words corrections are below….

        A man who killed his 7 week old baby daughter in a hospital by shaking her and forcing her face down into the bed gets out of jail today..

        He spent a total of 9 months in prison of a 30 month sentence....

        Obviously Sainsburys is more of a victim?

        And just for a few more details around the story, this has not come from any tabloid paper; I was actually at the trial as a close family friend of the victim’s mother and had just found out that he had been released from prison after spending less than a year in jail for the killing of a 7 week old baby girl because he was jealous of the baby and that the mothers attention was more on the baby than him. For more info Google "Joshua Bacon"

        1. CmdrX3

          Bravo!!!

          @AC - Well said that man.

        2. ScaredyCat
          Stop

          Wait.. what?

          "One of the things I have learned in life from people that make judgments on people based on a few lines of text is that they are usually the type of person who thinks they are better than most based on inconsequential issues"

          Didn't you just do this yourself?

          Dazed and confuddled...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Victim?

      There's no such thing as 'more' or 'less' of a victim, you're either a victim or you're not. Sainsburys is a victim, the baby is a victim.

      I don't dispute that it's decidely unfair - surely killing a baby counts as murder and warrants an appropriate sentence?

  8. Pete 43
    FAIL

    Carrot in a pancake

    Did he not think his Nectar points pattern wouldn't stand out?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Transferred millions of Nectar loyalty points"

    I think you'll find that the correct term is "foraging Nectar points".

    I used to have a Nectar card, but being single and spending wisely, my points would expire before I could get anything but maybe a key ring. So I eventually called them and told them to shove it. They didn't challenge that, so I guess I made a fair point. I also cancelled my Tesco card for the same reason, and because I didn't use their vouchers: "spend £20 on bread and get £1 off". Can I get £5 off another freezer too?

    Also it means that I don't get paper spam anymore... or maybe they still do at my old address!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sigh...

    This is why, especially on financial system:

    *No one person should have root/admin access to a server.

    *Dev staff shouldn't get access to prod servers.

    *You must have a change record to access a prod server as root/admin/elevated rights.

    *All changes should be checked to show that they have done what they were supported to do.

    *Users should have clearly defined roles on servers, so elevated rights for sysadmins/storage/db/app guys should not allow inappropriate access to other's commands (eg: a storage guy may need to be able to stop/start a database, or mount/unmount a filesystem, but he shouldn't be able to edit the db.)

    I suspect this sort of thing will be being in place at Sainsbury's now...

  11. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Obviously an amatuer

    If he was really clever, he'd be a proper crook, running a corporation...

  12. John 62

    Office Space

    I'm disappointed no-one mentioned it yet. Or even Superman 3.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Superman3

      Mentioned three days ago.

  13. John Edwards
    WTF?

    How?

    I don't know how Nectar points work. How much did this guy supposedly spend to get £80,000 worth of points? Spread over how many accounts? Anyone?

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