• NSW residents are selling their Dine & Discover vouchers on online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook buy & sell groups.
  
• Each NSW adult resident is eligible for four vouchers worth $25 each, as part of a scheme meant to encourage spending in the state’s hospitality, entertainment and tourism sectors.
• Exchanging screenshots or printed versions of the vouchers is a violation of the scheme’s conditions, according to the NSW government.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

NSW residents are selling dining and entertainment vouchers given to them by the state government on online marketplaces in return for cash.

The NSW Government began rolling out its Dine & Discover voucher scheme in March this year, in an effort to boost spending at dining, arts and tourism businesses across the state in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The scheme provides each NSW adult resident with four $25 vouchers to be used at registered NSW businesses.

This comprises two ‘Dine NSW’ to be spent on cafes and restaurants and two ‘Discover NSW’ to be spent on cinemas, museums and other types of entertainment.

The NSW government explicitly says that these vouchers cannot be redeemed for cash. The scheme’s conditions stipulate that vouchers are non-transferrable and cannot be sold to others.

But that hasn’t stopped some enterprising residents from attempting to turn their vouchers into currency by trying to sell them online.

Business Insider Australia has seen examples of users listing their vouchers on Facebook buy and sell groups and eBay.

These listings offer to exchange the vouchers by sending them a screenshot of the app’s QR code or an email version of the vouchers for a smaller amount of money, with the going rate being around $80 for all 4.

“Selling all 4 tickets together, will send screenshots of the bar ode (sic) to to buyer,” one listing reads.

People Selling Dine & Discover Vouchers from r/sydney

Exchanging vouchers like this opens ups buyers to being potentially scammed.

As it exists, businesses use the Service NSW for Business app to scan and accept vouchers.

Service NSW says the voucher may be presented on someone’s mobile phone in the app, as a printed voucher, as a PDF, SMS or even as the unique voucher code read out by a customer.

Once that’s completed, the resident’s Service NSW account updates to reflect that a voucher has been redeemed.

When users buy a voucher from someone, there’s no guarantee that the voucher hasn’t already been redeemed or is fraudulent.

The government has seemingly caught wind of this happening as a recent post on Service NSW’s social media channels warns residents not to buy vouchers.

“We’ve been made aware that Dine & Discover NSW vouchers are being listed for sale online. Remember, your Dine & Discover vouchers are solely intended for your use,” the post said.

“If someone tries to sell you vouchers, it’s against the terms and conditions and you might find the vouchers are cancelled or don’t work.”

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