If they get caught doing that however, they may be fired. Supermarket employees are specfically told that that is a breach of employment and a disciplinary offence. And in years of shopping at Tescos, I've never seen any do it (that said, I always have my card). Similarly with vouchers for schools etc... althuogh they are happy to pass them onto other customers (if you request them to do so), they are not meant to accept them themselves.

Considering that CRA does not consider points to be taxable I still think you're just making wild accusations without any basis. This is no different than using your friend/family/spouse's loyalty card when you go shopping.

only if you sit in the store and take the discount from every customer that doesn't have a card:

"excuse me sir/madam, I would like to help you by getting a discount, and I will in fact keep that discount and yes this is the 10th time today that I am doing it"

Also, the store will not even let you pay full price:

"sir did you forget your card, or do you want to apply for another one"

so it's apples and oranges.

and the CRA example does not imply that there are taxable consequences, only that if the wrong person sees the clerk committing wire fraud and laundering points (yeah i said it, dirty points).... there could be a problem, however small that chance is.

it's not a wild accusation...it's fraud, but very unlikely that anything comes of it.

Can you post what law it is breaking?

Thanks,

If points are not taxable then surely they cannot be classified as a discount either since he's not getting any cashback or anything of the sort?

Theft

I'm not sure that this would be considered theft. IANAL, but I feel like this my be more on the immoral, unethical side than illegal side.

For the record, anyone who think Air Miles gives points "at a very low rate" needs to have a closer look. I'm an Aeroplan Elite, but I carefully consider where I direct my points, and often Air Miles is the better value if your actually planning to use the points for travel.

For example, you buy $70 worth of gas at Shell and normally you would get about 4 points. If I buy premium grade (both my cars take it) and make a store purchase (lets say a $10 lottery ticket) I get 10x points, bumping me up to 40. I do that once a week for a year and my spend is $4160 (including the lottery ticket). that would net me 2080 air miles. By the way, that doesn't include any extra point for using an Air Miles credit card.

I live in Halifax, and because I hold a Air Miles Mastercard my travel redemptions are reduced by 25%.

Off season rate Halifax to Chicago or New York (with M/C reduction) is 956 Air Miles, so I actually have more than enough for two tickets. As an added bonus when you redeem it's like calling a travel agent, they simply buy the tickets, so there's no limited alotement of seats. I usually take my wife shopping in New York a couple times a year using them, AND I can normally get Aeroplan miles on the air Miles redemption trips (usually take Continental from Halifax to New York just after Thanksgiving).

$4160 at Esso gets you what, 1386 aeroplan miles. Well, your almost halfway to a $20 Uniprix gift card, enjoy!

Stealing from your employer is theft. Does not matter that you found a new way to game the system.

You cannot polish this turd and call it immoral or unethical. If the employee in question was taking these points, it is theft.

Employer buys points, employee steals them from the employer. No different than stealing cash.

Theft Money Laundering Wire Fraud and Bad Taste.

I don't think this would work where I live because if you buy gas and charge it to your credit card, the price is 10 cents per gallon higher (this started around 2008). So, effectively, the clerk would be paying 10 cents for every $4 or so charged (or 2.50%) for the benefit.

Otherwise, any of us could just hang out by the pumps and offer to run our credit cards through for any customer paying cash (and maybe offer them a trinket in exchange) and take the cash from them.

Hmmm. Anybody live where they no longer charge a premium for using a credit card for a gas purchase?

Lots of cry babies in this thread.

Again, the clerk did not use his own credit card to pay for the customer's purchase. The customer used his own credit card. And I've never seen a place which charged a premium for buying fuel on a credit card, actually some places give you a discount for paying by credit card.

I've never seen a gas station give a discount for paying with credit card over cash. Never.


I've seen many gas stations listing two prices:

87 octane: 2.899 cash
87 octane: 2.999 credit card

If the clerk is using a personal credit card, then this is also an excellent way to get free cash advances. Normally, in order to get cash advances there is a higher APR than for purchases. If the clerk pays off the credit card bill off every cycle, then there is 0% cash advance fee, and clerk also racks up airline miles! Of course, the owner then has to pay an significant fee for all the credit card purchases. Many gas stations around here don't charge anything extra for charging gas on a credit card. But, this sounds complicated because customers often want a cash receipt and/or change. At any rate, I would find it unlikely that a cash-strapped DA office would bother to go after somebody gaming the system. Heck, the DA around here no longer even investigates check fraud. Now that's what I call real "theft."