Tesco's iconic blue and red card offers shoppers huge savings and has been around for decades but few people know its true origins. In fact, the now-famous Clubcard only exists because a disturbed customer threatened to put his HIV-infected blood into the chain's food.
Rewind to 1995 and Frank Riolfo claimed that he had the disease and warned he would contaminate products unless they created a card to pay him a huge sum of money, reports the Mirror.
And it was his insane demands that resulted in the savers' card being launched by the retail giant. Riolfo told bosses to pay him £250,000 via the plastic card after calling the Tesco store in Kettering, Northamptonshire - when he referenced himself to be 'St Mary-Ann'.
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He told managers he had infected the food and employers started searching the store. Staff eventually found a pack of frozen peas and prawns injected with black ink.
But days later, he sent another demand to head office saying they should create the card as a safe way to pay him - or he would do it for real.
Chillingly he wrote: "As you know by now, the food was contaminated with pen ink. It could so easily have been a toxic substance. I am fully prepared to extend my actions unless my demands are met.''
The former lance corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps added: ''I have AIDS. So I have a ready-made supply of infected blood.''
Concerned for their customers' safety, bosses then launched the Clubcard promotion at the Dudley store, and agreed to hand over thousands. The cards carried secret details so Riolfo could withdraw the cash.
Riolfo and his wife withdrew the cash from ATM's around England. But in April 1995, he was arrested at a cashpoint in Slough. He was jailed for eight years by Northampton Crown Court after admitting everything.
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