Ruin My Week
Everyone knows there’s only one true way to achieve success in life and it’s knowing how to work the system.
Since most of us aren’t “the man” ourselves, you gotta work with what you’ve got. Taking advantage of loopholes, harmless scamming, and sweet-talking your way through life is its own kind of hard work.
It takes a solid plan and a lot of balls to benefit in life by bending the rules and as long as no one’s gettin’ hurt, it’s a damn near genius way to get ahead.
Redditor u/SterlingBoardman wanted to know (for entertainment reasons only, I’m sure), “What loophole did you exploit for years before someone found out?” and the results are impressive as hell.
Here are 20 of the best low-level scammer stories that’ll make you say “damn, why didn’t I think of that?”
1.
“I paid three hundred dollars a month to park a really pimped out van in a heated garage in Boston. If you parked front in no one could see you. Found a spot near an electrical outlet and ran a line into the van. Paid for a $10 gym across the street that was open for 24 hours so I had all the hot showers I wanted. Served at a nearby restaurant so ate most of my meals for free. Watched tv on my laptop with the free WiFi from the coffee shop above me. Literally lived in downtown Boston for 310 dollars a month while I went to college.” –Johnsendall
2.
“When I was a kid there was a pay phone down the street that if you put your quarter in made a call but no one answered it would give you back two quarters. Went there all the time and called home when I knew no one was there to answer.” –btpn-425
3.
“I used to work at a grocery store and we had this era of the steak discounts. Hundreds of coupons for $5 off a steak were just everywhere for some reason. I found out that if I used the self checkout and bought a steak that was less than $5 while using the coupon, the machine would give me back the difference in change. I ate dozens of free steaks and filled my change jar up nicely.” –retrospect26
4.
“There is an app for a local burger chain where it allows you to “roll the dice” to get a code for a free double-patty burger upgrade. It was designed so you could only try it once per day and it even shows the date of the roll on the code so the cashier could verify it.
However, I found out that you can just change the date on your phone and try again immediately. If you got nothing, change it again and just keep going until you get the code. Then, when you got the code, you change the date back to current date and the app updates the code so it looks like you rolled it today.
I got free burger upgrades for years until they finally got rid of the feature all together. I don’t know if anyone ever figured out this exploit, they removed it for other reasons.” –SpookyPlankton
5.
“I went to a sporting goods store and they asked me for my phone number when I was paying. I was in a bad mood and didn’t want to fight with the clerk so I told them our local area code + 555-1212 (which is the old number for directory assistance), clerk accepted it and I left. When I checked my receipt I had a huge number of loyalty points – because apparently a ton of other people did the same thing. I called the office the next day and switched the “account” to my new address. A half-dozen times over the next few years, I went and got free stuff with all the points that I kept racking up as one of their most loyal customers.” –otternoses
6.
“My friend used to restock condom machines in pubs and collect the money from them. The machines would always break and get jammed all the time but because it was condoms no one would ever tell someone that the machine ate their money. He would just count how many condoms were gone and give that amount of money to the company and pocket the rest.” –thebollard
7.
“The McDonald’s app used to have an entry in the order book for “garlic parmesan fries” that you only found through the search option. It cost $0.00. Every time I ordered it I got free regular fries.” –jonhuang
8.
“Parking meters took credit cards. But they weren’t actually connected to a live network at all times. The machine just confirmed the card number was valid and was not expired, then spit out a valid pass. So when my card number got stolen and replaced, I kept my old, cancelled card. Of course when the system tried to run the card later it would be declined. My car and I were long gone by then. Sadly they wised up and now it charges your card before giving you a pass.” –pierrekrahn
9.
“Worked out how to get the jackpot every time on a Connect 4 fruit machine in a pub I used to drink in. It would cost about £5-£10 before you’d get into the bonus round, then when you did, you’d play a connect 4 game against the machine. You place the first counter, and then after the machine places the next counter, you mirror the machines move. Every game ends in a draw, and you win the jackpot, which was £50.
The pub landlord removed the machine after around 3 months as it was regularly empty, basically paid for my drinking and more for 3 months!” –mammoth200
10.
“One week the local Chick-fil-a put a coupon in a local coupon magazine flyer which was Buy 1, Get 1 Free, any item on the menu. Next to that coupon they had a 50% off any menu item. I carefully checked, and neither coupon mentioned “Cannot be combined with any other offer” anywhere on it. So I ran out to the local grocery store and grabbed a stack of these flyers. Sure enough the next week the offer was gone, but it was too late to stop me.
I spent almost 2 years as a grad student living almost exclusively off of 128-count nugget platters that I would get for 25% of the cost (1st half off, 2nd free). Place went under new management and they put up a sign saying they would no longer be accepting those coupons. Not entirely sure if that was due solely to me or if anyone else was pulling the same thing. I had about 20 coupon pairs left when they shut it down.” –bravehamster
