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Published: 13th December 2023

Watchdog has seen over a hundred Iceland bonus card holders who, having saved their own money onto their cards, have been victims of theft.

The store’s Bonus Card scheme offers a chance for customers to save up cash throughout the year, to spend at Iceland. However we have heard from Jade, from Wolverhampton, who saw her carefully-saved balance disappear.

Jade had taken 6 months to save £231 on her Iceland Bonus Card, however in November 2023 she checked her balance and, realised there was zero on her card. She told Watchdog that she felt “just sheer panic”.

She called Iceland and Jade told us their response. “The lady I spoke to said they’d actually gone into the store. It was somewhere in London, which obviously is nowhere near me. It's not like I ever had a physical card I’d only got the one on my app.”

Jade went on to tell us “they said that they'd looked into it and it hadn't come from their side. That it must have been that I clicked on a phishing email and that's how my password must have got accessed.”

Watchdog also spoke to John and his wife Amanda from Gillingham. They had an Iceland card each and had saved £205 between them, which disappeared. Like Jade, John also called Iceland Customer Services. He told us “The chap said that I’d probably opened a phishing email, because he saw that there had been no data breach at the Iceland end.”

We furthermore received testimonies from additional Iceland customers Carl, Esther and Carla, who also shared their experiences of losing money from their Iceland Bonus Cards. Carl told us that £120 had been stolen, Esther stated that she was informed the purchases were made in Wales, where she’s never visited, and finally Carla stated that her card account had been accessed twice, losing over £100.

Back in 2018 Iceland also had problems with its Bonus Card scheme. It reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office that thousands of accounts had been accessed and suggested the problem lay with customers not using unique passwords, although Iceland has also said that no-one had lost any money.

Since Watchdog has been in touch, Iceland has now reimbursed all the customers we spoke to.

In response to our case studies, a spokesperson for Iceland has told us it’s aware of the issues, that it’s aiming to refund any affected customers within 10 days, and it will also soon be able to issue digital replacement Bonus Cards to customers within 24 hours.

The spokesperson for Iceland has furthermore commented that…

“There has been no security breach at Iceland and no customer has ever lost money to fraud in the 15 years that the Bonus Card has been in operation.

“Instances of attempted fraud are extremely rare among the millions of Bonus Cards currently in active use. These attempts are almost invariably the result of customer details being gained through hacks of other websites, phishing or malware. All the case studies presented to us by Watchdog were the result of passwords being compromised by such means.

“Because we understand the distress caused by fraud, we have always fully compensated all customers whose savings have been affected by criminal activity, despite Iceland not being at fault. Prior to Watchdog’s approach we had already substantially reduced the time it takes to provide this goodwill compensation to our customers, and we will spare no effort to ensure that no one’s Christmas is spoilt by fraudsters.”

Watchdog is still talking to Iceland about how this is happening, but we do urge our viewers to check their Bonus Card balances, and if it doesn’t look right, speak to Iceland.