Has anyone dealt with Staples rewards Theft??

Just joined Staples rewards in Nov, and my first $20 in ink posted on my Dec. Statement.

On 1/6/12 someone (other than myself of course) in South Plainfield,NJ redeemed my Dec statement check. I live in the midwest. I never gave out any coupons or divulged my rewards number to anyone. I had barely set up the account.

A couple questions:

1) What's the best method about trying to get staples to manually re-issue these rewards? I assume it's one of these phone numbers listed in the wiki, but I'm not premier. Should I call the office of the president (800) 338-0252? or the premier number (888) 891-3787?

2) My jan. statement just posted a few days ago with another $20. Is the best method of protecting this reward check buying a small item in-store, then holding on to the "leftover reward check". Are those safe, or have people had those generated/stolen/hacked as well?

3) I'm going to hit premier here sometime during Feb. (just finished $1k spend yesterday). I imagine when I call staples they will want to issue me a new account #, but from what I've read, that is probably no more secure from theft? I know they will transfer my premier status for 2012 to the new account, but what about for 2013? Anybody with experience on this from the last year into this?

Thanks. I'm really worried about the rather large Feb. rewards statement coming my way. Don't want to have to spend it all the minute I get it, but I guess that would be preferable to it being stolen. This has probably been said, but what happens if you do a return with items you paid for with staples rewards? Can they transfer the rewards over as credit as long as the rewards wouldn't have expired yet? This is all very complicated and somewhat comically sad

Just had another one stolen.

Sorry to hear. I'm sure Staples is looking into this!

that's ok, they usually give me a bit extra for the trouble

3) No account is safe these days. One just has to be proactive in monitoring one's personal account regularly. From what I have read here, when you are issued a new account, you get Premier status for the current year and the next. I do not know if all your present transactions will necessarily get transferred though. You may need to specifically ask about that as well as your February rewards which may not be issued if your existing rewards account is closed. Some people have also mentioned a courtesy coupon being issued in recognition of the hassle for the customer.

At the end of the day, new account or not, all rewards appear to be highly susceptible to theft. The best way is to use them as soon as you get them or at the very least, buy something small to protect the bulk of the amount.

I believe I was the one who reported getting a "complimentary" Premier for the following year, since they were not able to transfer purchases from the old account to the new one. Well, despite the fact that I confirmed this with 3 different CSRs, my wife's account reverted back to regular mid-January. When I called them about it, they looked at the old account and the new one and told me that the total spending was less than $1K. Then, I told them what I was told about them being so "courteous", etc. She checked with her supervisor and upgraded the account to Premier manually.

If anyone's account is compromised and a new one is opened, it's now the member's job to keep an eye on the spending under the new account and get a total from them via phone combining both accounts to ensure $1K+ spending.

The second thing to keep in mind is the online orders. None of her online orders showed up in the new account (even though the new Rewards number was used for each order), and when I called them they linked the old and the new accounts together (now, there's an "additional user" listed under account profile with the old rewards number next to it).

What a pain in the neck this is turning into...

My jan. statement just posted a few days ago with another $20. Is the best method of protecting this reward check buying a small item in-store, then holding on to the "leftover reward check". Are those safe, or have people had those generated/stolen/hacked as well?

Such a shame though that theft of rewards is happening at this rate with absolutely no action from Staples that we can tell.

My question is do they only steal INK checks, or do they steal other rewards checks too (like for the 25% back, 100% FARewards, etc check)?

IIRC, only the ink as they are of a fixed dollar amount. $20, $40, or more depending on promos.