Recent event - An illegal procedure?
 

**Mods - Please move it to the right section if it's not here

I stopped at a Shell station to fill up on gas half way from my house to the airport one early morning last week. It was like 5am. I was the only one there.

I went inside to pay with cash. The cashier (a young man) asked if I had Air miles card, to which I answered no. That's when I saw him do something suspicious - He picked up another air miles card right next to the barcode scanner and scanned it...

It's safe to assume that was his card. Now if he did that with me, we can all assume that he's done it with others. Seriously, that's racking up some massive points!

Is that legal?

On a side note, a close relative of mine has had an air miles card that he's used for the past 15 years for groceries, dry cleaning and gas. He has 5500 points. At 20$/1 point, he's spent 110k to get that amount of points.

Wonder how long it would take this guy at this rate??? :rolleyes:

Phil

It may be against the mileage program's T&C, but it is probably not illegal. Of course we'd need more details to know for sure.

He's ripping off his employer, though, who has to pay the credit card fees on that purchase.

Mike

Not really MR Discussion.

I got friendly with a US Speedway clerk ans was told they have percentage goals to reach regarding transactions with a loyalty card. If the customer was not inclined to signup they did scan an unregistered one off the application pile. Whoever signed up got a nice surprise in their balance. Most likely the clerk didn't feel like giving the full sales push at 5AM.

Had something similar happen at dm - a drugstore here in Germany. The cashier asked if I had a payback card and inspite of me showing and her scanning it she scanned another barcode. On questioning her it turns out she registered me for the 5x promo that was running at the time (for which I had registered). Her supervisor had told her to register everyone to avoid discussions later when people whine that their 5x promo points didn't post.

That aside, the loyalty programs do some data mining to check if there are employees scanning their own cards over and over at the same vending point more than a feasible amount of times a day @:-)

Please follow this thread in Miles Buzz.

--jpdx, MR Moderator

Well if the station ever looks closely at the records, the clerk is in for a federal indictment and a lost job I would think.

I would think that the station would have software to autocatch such abuse (or the clerks cc co would be like hmmm how much gas can someone buy...'

Hey at 5% cash back on many cards u can see the attraction

I think the Costco Amex capped their gas purchase rebates in the last year or two ....

I'm confused :confused:... No longer confused thanks to the post by QBK.

You are making the assumption that the employee is using the same card over and over. It is legally possible for the employee to have dozens of cards and dozens of authorized users with dozens of names making detection difficult by mining data. A camera over the register might be the way to catch this situation since the transaction records can be gamed.:cool:

@aubreyfromwheaton and @rc408: Air Canada's Aeroplan program does things a bit differently. They offer an "Air Miles" card. It's not a credit card -- it's just a piece of plastic linked to your Aeroplan account. Various retailers offer miles (at a very low rate, like 1 mile per $20) for shopping with them.

I'm almost certain this is what the OP is talking about.

The closest U.S. parallel is probably the various airline shopping malls, where you can get miles just for routing your online purchase (e.g., Barnes and Noble) through the airline portal. Doesn't matter what credit card you use.

So it's not like the gas station attendant was doing anything funny with anybody's credit card (nor taking miles that the OP was entitled to). He was just racking up (very slowly) extra bonus miles via Aeroplan's affinity program. Ethically questionable? Maybe. But very probably not illegal, since his actions don't hurt the customer.

Thank you for the clarification. I was begining to think I was missing something (or it was a troll post:D)

Calm down people, don't accuse this guy of ripping people off (other than Air Miles maybe) and doing illegal things without knowing what Air Miles even is. Air Miles is a Canadian retail loyalty programme found at many service stations, supermarkets, etc. The cashier did everything as normal, but when he asked the customer if he had a loyalty card and they didn't, he probably swiped his own. Air Miles is independent from all of these companies so the clerks who scan the cards at retail places have no need to promote them. The customer paid for their own fuel, he simply collected the "unused" miles, which as said typically accrue at a paltry 1 mile per $20 spent. (However, short-haul redemptions start at around 1k miles) Air Miles is not going to be happy about this, but he didn't hurt the customer or his employer in any way. Actually, this is quite ingenious... this guy must get quite a few free flights a year on this, particularly if there's a 10x miles promo or something going on.

This isn't Aeroplan or credit card related at all.
Yes, you can use an Aeroplan card at many retail places to earn miles in Canada as well (usually 1 mile per $ spent). This is actually quite disliked by people who actually fly AC for their miles.

The thing is that someone must pay for those points/miles. Ain't nothing free in the mileage/points game.

Yes, he is ripping off Air Miles in a miniscule way, but doing MRs and mini-RTW award redemptions are not exactly playing in the spirit of the game either.

What Federal crime do you contend has been committed?