Asda Help The Economy By Giving Money Away

[Democorruptcy]

One example is Tesco pricing a juice up at 3p that results in a 98p money back voucher for customers paying £1 at Asda

Load torpedo 1...... Fire torpedo 1.....

'I've made £8,670 off Asda in four weeks': Professional shoppers exploit glitch to cash in on supermarket's price guarantee

Asda has been forced to cap its Asda Price Guarantee vouchers after a glitch allowed shoppers to cash in, with one claiming to have done so to the tune of more than £8,500 in four weeks.

The scheme underpins the supermarket's guarantee to be 10 per cent cheaper than its main competitors.

Asda's promise was that if your shopping was more expensive at Asda than the comparable basket bought at Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco or Waitrose, you were due a money-off voucher for the difference plus 10 per cent.

Now the supermarket's guarantee to be 10 per cent cheaper is limited to £15.00, no matter how much more expensive your Asda shopping might be compared to rivals.

The move follows four weeks of Asda's money-off voucher scheme coming under attack from professional shoppers which has cost it potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds.

One shopper claimed to have done £8,670 of non-stop grocery shopping in four weeks, paying for most of it with Asda Price Guarantee money-off vouchers.

The shopper now has a massive stockpile of Asda goods, which they have managed to reclaim the cost of.

The loophole being exploited comes from Asda’s system understating prices for rivals’ products and then paying out the difference, plus 10 per cent. Meanwhile, voucher hunters have been gaming the system to beat an existing £100 monthly cap.

TRICKS THAT BUST VOUCHER LIMITS

Asda limits customers to ten vouchers a month and not exceeding £100, which makes spending hours trying to beat the system pointless, except how to avoid limits is part of the game.

Savvy shoppers have found that using a new email address with each voucher request and entering made- up addresses with real random post codes may take extra time compared to entering real details but the reward has been no cap on vouchers.

.The story of shopper x's stash and other tales has clocked up over two million views and 63,240 comments on consumer website moneysavingexpert.com where shoppers have pooled thousands of Asda till receipts to identify products that will generate high value Asda Price Guarantee vouchers.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2207792/Ive-8-670-Asda--Shoppers-exploit-price-guarantee-glitch.html

[200p]

There's always opportunity out there. But make hay whilst the sun shines.

[erat_forte]

Amazing how productive people can be to get cheating money off vouchers! Probably pays better than working in the pathetic excuse for an economy we have nowadays!

[Discopants]

Why not just pay the full 3p price at tesco ? And not have to fuss about making loads of false email accounts ?So these professional shoppers are now sitting on 8000 bottles of orange juice ?

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

It's fraud, or at least obtaining a pecuniary advantage through deception.

When you claim you agree to their terms and conditions.

I hope they were paying by cash every time, as all the vouchers are logged and can ultimately be tracked back to their original source.

Using other peoples vouchers are against the rules. Using more than the set limit is against the rules. Lying about your identity is against the rules.

This was fraud and when Asda trace it back the people involved will have the book thrown at them due to the level of planning and intent involved.

People could actually see prison time over this.

[happy_renting]

It's fraud, or at least obtaining a pecuniary advantage through deception.

When you claim you agree to their terms and conditions.

I hope they were paying by cash every time, as all the vouchers are logged and can ultimately be tracked back to their original source.

Using other peoples vouchers are against the rules. Using more than the set limit is against the rules. Lying about your identity is against the rules.

This was fraud and when Asda trace it back the people involved will have the book thrown at them due to the level of planning and intent involved.

People could actually see prison time over this.

Agreed.

Bankers call it arbitrage and their is no cap on Bankers windfalls though, and they don't get prison, they get knighthoods.

[MongerOfDoom]

This was fraud and when Asda trace it back the people involved will have the book thrown at them due to the level of planning and intent involved.

People could actually see prison time over this.

I don't think ASDA are able to trace the user of an anonymous email address. It's often trivial for the police, but ASDA is unlikely to want the publicity. I guess that the fight against crime would have to be going really quite well for the police to be interested in someone who broke the T&Cs of a supermarket voucher scheme. That is not to say you won't be proved right though.

What I want to know is how far these refund offers can go before they become indistinguishable from legalised price-fixing.

[dangermaus]

Why not just pay the full 3p price at tesco ? And not have to fuss about making loads of false email accounts ?So these professional shoppers are now sitting on 8000 bottles of orange juice ?

if i understand it correctly they get a voucher for the difference + 10%

so they buy the £1 bottle of orange, they get a voucher for 97p + 9.7p - 107p.

I guess the orange wasn't the most fruitful of the deals available

[Discopants]

if i understand it correctly they get a voucher for the difference + 10%

so they buy the £1 bottle of orange, they get a voucher for 97p + 9.7p - 107p.

I guess the orange wasn't the most fruitful of the deals available

Ah, that makes a little more sense, so the guy who made 8000 in 4 weeks actually has 80000 bottles of orange juice in his or her shed

I wonder if Tesco are actually stocking any juice at 3p a pop?

[dangermaus]

Ah, that makes a little more sense, so the guy who made 8000 in 4 weeks actually has 80000 bottles of orange juice in his or her shed

I wonder if Tesco are actually stocking any juice at 3p a pop?

if something was out of stock mysupermarket.com would list it at 3p apparently.

[easy2012]

Amazing how productive people can be to get cheating money off vouchers! Probably pays better than working in the pathetic excuse for an economy we have nowadays!

It looks to me that this was attempt to obtain pecuniary advantage by deception (fake postcodes etc) - which is a criminal offence.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

I don't think ASDA are able to trace the user of an anonymous email address.

They won't they'll trace it through the voucher.

Vouchers are issued for individual receipts. The vouchers are uniquely numbered. You lookup the receipt for the voucher. Then you lookup any vouchers used on that purchase and track those back to their receipts. Rinse and repeat. It's called a recursive search. Eventually all the vouchers will track back to an original purchase, and probably a credit card number. Then you just group by the card number, sum up all the voucher amounts and you'll have a figure for how much and how many claims each customer has made.

I wouldn't be surprised if you read the T&Cs Asda are allowed to bill your credit card if you attempt to over-claim.

As I said, if the very first purchase was cash and they have used cash every time after that then they'll be OK.

The chances are the shopper made at least one of their purchases on a card. It only takes one voucher in the chain to have come from a card payment to make it fully traceable.

[easy2012]

They won't they'll trace it through the voucher.

Vouchers are issued for individual receipts. The vouchers are uniquely numbered. You lookup the receipt for the voucher. Then you lookup any vouchers used on that purchase and track those back to their receipts. Rinse and repeat. It's called a recursive search. Eventually all the vouchers will track back to an original purchase, and probably a credit card number. Then you just group by the card number, sum up all the voucher amounts and you'll have a figure for how much and how many claims each customer has made.

I wouldn't be surprised if you read the T&Cs Asda are allowed to bill your credit card if you attempt to over-claim.

As I said, if the very first purchase was cash and they have used cash every time after that then they'll be OK.

The chances are the shopper made at least one of their purchases on a card. It only takes one voucher in the chain to have come from a card payment to make it fully traceable.

and CCTV.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

and CCTV.

Useful if they deny it, but no good for finding them.

It's where computers show how powerful they are, doing simple recursive searches.

[R K]

if something was out of stock mysupermarket.com would list it at 3p apparently.

similar to the May 4th 2010 'Flash Crash' then.

Effectively a 'no bid' stub quote triggering arbitrage bids at Asda.

Quite funny actually.

This is a failure of computerised trading

Edited September 25, 2012 by Red Knight

[Democorruptcy]

I don't think ASDA are able to trace the user of an anonymous email address. It's often trivial for the police, but ASDA is unlikely to want the publicity. I guess that the fight against crime would have to be going really quite well for the police to be interested in someone who broke the T&Cs of a supermarket voucher scheme. That is not to say you won't be proved right though.

What I want to know is how far these refund offers can go before they become indistinguishable from legalised price-fixing.

Why would Asda want to trace email addresses? Nobody broke the terms. The terms were just inadequate and didn't cover this happening. Which is why a £15 limit is now part of the updated terms.

If someone has "made" £8.6k in money back vouchers they must have spent more than that and have a lot of Asda goods. Can they get through them before the use by dates?

[MongerOfDoom]

Why would Asda want to trace email addresses? Nobody broke the terms. The terms were just inadequate and didn't cover this happening. Which is why a £15 limit is now part of the updated terms.

What you say appears to be inconsistent with the quote that started this thread. If you feel that quote is incorrect, it would probably be best to reply to that post instead.

I think the reason would be that without multiple email addresses and random postcodes used by the same person there would be some difficulty in demonstrating the deception in "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception". The post I had replied to suggested that some of the shoppers might be charged with that offence.

Savvy shoppers have found that using a new email address with each voucher request and entering made- up addresses with real random post codes may take extra time compared to entering real details but the reward has been no cap on vouchers.

.The story of shopper x's stash and other tales has clocked up over two million views and 63,240 comments on consumer website moneysavingexpert.com where shoppers have pooled thousands of Asda till receipts to identify products that will generate high value Asda Price Guarantee vouchers.

[Democorruptcy]

What you say appears to be inconsistent with the quote that started this thread. If you feel that quote is incorrect, it would probably be best to reply to that post instead.

I think the reason would be that without multiple email addresses and random postcodes used by the same person there would be some difficulty in demonstrating the deception in "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception". The post I had replied to suggested that some of the shoppers might be charged with that offence.

I don't see how Asda would have a leg to stand on to try claim 'pecuniary advantage by deception'. If the terms had said "maximum £15" or "only one email address per customer" then maybe. Our MPs would say it was all "within the rules".

The thing that amuses me is the Tesco angle and any other supermarkets who had silly 3p prices via how the comparison site worked. I don't they sabotaged the Asda offer but that's how it worked out. Will they laughing or thinking it's going to be ages before such as the £8.6k shopper needs any of our stuff?

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

Why would Asda want to trace email addresses? Nobody broke the terms. The terms were just inadequate and didn't cover this happening. Which is why a £15 limit is now part of the updated terms.

If someone has "made" £8.6k in money back vouchers they must have spent more than that and have a lot of Asda goods. Can they get through them before the use by dates?

The terms said no-one could claim more than £x. (£100) People used fake identities to obtain the vouchers even after they had exceeded their claim limit. Claiming more than X breaches the terms. Giving false details breaches the terms.

They then made repeated trips, presumably to different stores as there is an overnight delay between purchase and being able to claim the vouchers, looping the vouchers up.

Effectively they were taking advantage of the 10%, buying items that had been mistakenly miss-priced at other retailers by Asda's data supplier.

In terms of how much someone would have to spend, taking the Juice drink as an example, buy 50 bottles at £1 each. Tescos price is 3p so you get back 97p PLUS 10%.... £1.09 per bottle. Assuming you throw the orange juice drink away, you've got back £53 in vouchers which is your original £50 plus £4.50 profit. If 3p is the standard "out-of-stock" price then you just need to find an item at £3, getting you £2.97 back plus 30p extra. Buy 100, throw them away, and you have £30 profit. Repeat.

Not only is it almost certainly "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception", but you are obtaining the vouchers through Asda's online system. Your use of that system is permitted subject to their terms and conditions. If you breach their T&Cs you aren't allowed to use their computer system. As a result this is probably also covered by the computer misuse act, which is up their with the anti-terrorism act in terms on consequences.

I should add, this isn't Asdas fault. They have put in place a genuine and generous offer, and people have looked for ways to abuse it. It's also worth noting that if you know someone has made a mistake in the pricing of an item or calculation of an offer, it if your responsibility as a grown up to tell them. Taking advantage of a mistake is in itself an offence, though I can't remember which one... there are a number of general "honesty" type laws. It's the same one they get you with is the cash machine gives out £20s instead of £10s and you do loads of withdrawals to take advantage.

Ultimately, if Asda can show that the Fraud was intentional, through the use of a false identity or provision of false information, then they will be legally entitled to ask for the money back.

Mr I'm-so-f*cking-clever could well wake up tomorrow to find that his credit card has been billed for the £8,500 he has dishonestly acquired.

Or, if he's really unlucky the thieving little sh*t could wake up to a knock from the local financial crimes division.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

I don't see how Asda would have a leg to stand on to try claim 'pecuniary advantage by deception'. If the terms had said "maximum £15" or "only one email address per customer" then maybe. Our MPs would say it was all "within the rules".

The thing that amuses me is the Tesco angle and any other supermarkets who had silly 3p prices via how the comparison site worked. I don't they sabotaged the Asda offer but that's how it worked out. Will they laughing or thinking it's going to be ages before such as the £8.6k shopper needs any of our stuff?

Deliberately seeding the price comparison site with false prices would be in breach of their terms and conditions, and also the sales of goods act.

At best they would slap on the wrist, possibly a fine. If it could be shown they did it deliberately and with intent it becomes a really serious matter, to the extend that Tesco could never risk it.

[Democorruptcy]

The terms said no-one could claim more than £x. (£100) People used fake identities to obtain the vouchers even after they had exceeded their claim limit. Claiming more than X breaches the terms. Giving false details breaches the terms.

Sorry I totally missed the £100 limit. I thought it had gone from no limit to £15 not £100 to £15. So yes it does seem worse now and they could be in trouble.

[campervanman]

There have always been loopholes in the big supermarket offers, anyone remember this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/banana-economics-buy-942lb-of-fruit-give-it-away--and-make-pounds-25-profit-1283219.html

"I took a car load at a time because even with the back seat down and the boot full I could only fit in 460lbs of bananas,"