Every little helps the fraudsters (AGAIN!)

Following on from Tesco's previously reported assistance to credit card criminals as detailed here on Tesco-Complaint (see "Every Little Helps Credit Card Fraud?" and "Tesco self-scan tills open to card fraud"), Tesco has managed to find yet another way of helping criminals as reported in The Sun by consumer journalist Charles Rae:

THOUSANDS of Tesco customers have been left open to identity fraud after a horrifying security blunder. Store receipts listing FULL credit card details have been found scattered around a depot where they were taken to be destroyed.



In the hands of crooks, customers could be cheated out of millions of pounds — siphoned from bank and credit card accounts. Fraudsters could also use the details — including card numbers, expiry dates and authorisation codes — for shopping sprees on the internet and elsewhere. Amazingly, the receipts were taken to the depot in plastic Tesco carrier bags instead of secure containers.

Workers at the Christian Salvesen recycling depot left the bags in piles unattended or tossed them in skips where they burst open. One said: “I found hundreds of Tesco receipts holding sensitive customer information just blowing around the depot. Some even had signatures. “It put thousands of customers at risk. There is no security at the depot. Anyone could walk in, scoop up a few receipts and walk out. Confidential information is supposed to be put in locked cages and destroyed. “I’m worried people could use the details to set up credit cards and accounts in customers’ names.”

The source told how a driver at the depot in Snodland, Kent, complained to bosses about receipts everywhere — so a cleaner dumped them in a bin. The Sun was given a batch of receipts — in waste collected from some of Tesco’s 1,000 stores in Kent, Surrey, Essex and South East London. A security expert said: “Tesco could have given a crook all they need.” Campaigner Scamsdirect.com said: “It’s an awful lapse.”

Furious bosses at Tesco — whose slogan is Every Little Helps — have now tightened security. A spokesman said: “We have new procedures so it can’t happen again.”