Scene Card/ Points Fraud - It's REAL and what to look out for!

You often hear about credit card fraud, identity theft but points fraud is something you don't often hear about. The Scene rewards program is great in the sense that you get slightly more bang for your buck. Normal credit card reward programs (that's no fee) usually gives you back either cash or points of some sort that amounts of 1% of what your purchase is - from my observation. This is true for Scene points, but since 1000 points can be redeemed for something (a movie, in this case that's worth $13+), you get a bit more bang for your buck

While logging into my banking account today, I found that my Scene points balance was significantly lower than the last time I checked. That prompted me to check my Cineplex account and Scene account (their log-ins are different). I found out that my Cineplex account showed the same information as my banking account but I couldn't even log-in to my Scene account.

After digging a bit on my Cineplex account, I found out that there was an "adult's night out" that was redeemed. I don't remember ever redeeming that - nor would I ever actually (as a side note.. I think it's a waste of points redeeming for something cheap like popcorn). This caused me to feel alarmed so I decided to contact Scene to figure out if there was any information they can give me on it.

Once I contacted Scene, they told me that they couldn't find any account under my name or contact information. This was quite alarming. Then after digging and verifying, they finally found my account - or the trace of it. They discovered that the name corresponding to my account was someone called "Rodrigeuz". The last time I checked.. I wasn't of Spanish or Latino descent... and they fraudulently redeemed all my points on an adult's night out.

Honestly.. I was very shocked that someone would go through the trouble of hacking into someone's account, changing their information and then taking things away. I am not too sure where the breakdown in security is, but I can see (from my perspective) that just to log-in to Scene, there's three different systems that can access the same information... it does make me feel uneasy.

The customer service at Scene was nice enough to give me a new card and then return the stolen points back to my account.

In summary - Check your scene points balance regularly. I know it may sound silly and even if you don't use it a lot, it could mean that there's a security breakdown somewhere. You should change your passwords and verify if information (like transactions are correct).