Barcode Scam Redux - Target's $4.99 iPod

abscondment writes "Nearly a year ago, two couples were charged with scamming WalMart for nearly $1.5 Million by creating custom barcodes with reduced prices. You'd think that in the intervening months, other companies would guard against such shenanigans - but today we see that Target just caught a scammer buying iPods for $4.99! The 19 year old used BarCode Magic to create fake barcodes, buying expensive electronics suspiciously low prices. Personally, I would have gone for a less blatant discount, or refrained from visiting the same store so soon afterwards."

Comments

Class 5 felony

[QuietLagoon]

The 19-year-old is facing three counts of being naughty - one of them a Class 5 felony.

Ouch, ... that's gonna leave a mark...

Re:Class 5 felony

[alienw]

Well, it would be kind of hard to walk out the store with an iPod under his jacket, wouldn't it now? Hence the forgery charge. If you just try to steal something, you'll probably get caught, so the punishment is not too severe. More sophisticated schemes merit more significant charges.

Re:cause property theft is kewl!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chilldafuckout. Geeks (in the Jon Katz sense) can't resist an optimization problem. It's not an ethical issue... just another abstraction in a life that's probably filled with abstractions. Just because I think, Suppose I were an iPod thief... what's the best way for me to balance the risk/reward equation? doesn't mean I don't respect property rights, or that I'm even remotely likely to steal anything in the real world.

Re:The crime is in getting caught...

[bjwest]

The crime is in getting caught? No, the crime was in fraudulently purchasing items. What's wrong with today's youth that think it's not cheating or stealing if you don't get caught? No wonder crime is such a problem. You need to grow up and realize that breaking the rules/law is wrong whether or not you get caught.

Anyone else read the article as a how-to?

[ubergrits]

TFA reads basically as a step-by-step guide to teach any-and-everyone how to (at least attempt to) pull off a similar barcode scam. From the googling for the name of the barcode software, to outlining his method for affixing the faux-UPCs to the box and then looking for relatively ignorant checkout cashiers to use...this article explains it all. Hell, it even mentions that the 'Barcode Magic' software has a 15-day free trial. My quetions: (1) How in the hell is that relevant to the article? and (2) How many kiddies are now going to read this, download the software, and start perpetrating their own scams? Sheesh...

Too easy to create barcodes

[garylian]

Barcodes are fairly easy to create using just a PC and a decent quality laser printer.

If they took it to the extreme that you needed to have a certain font card (a nice DIMM or SIMM) to produce any barcode, it would slow folks down a whole lot. When you have to spend a hundred or two to get the font card, the price for entry will slow down the casual twit.

15 day free trial on that program. That part just cracks me up.

Re:The crime is in getting caught...

[imsabbel]

And 95.21% statistics are bullshit made up on the spot.

One hint: 10 orders of magnitudes more than a single ipod is more than the domestic product of the world... during this whole decade.

Re:The crime is in getting caught...

[Fjornir]

While you are right that the big box stores do adjust their pricing to make up for the loss, a lot of that money you're foolish to think that they're not watching you. True, they're not interested in "deterrance [sic]" -- but they are definately interested in stopping thieves (and that knowledge is certainly a deterrent to some, I'm sure).

The fact is that a candy bar or an iPod doesn't impact them all that much. But even those add up fast. But the real damage comes from people who find a decent grift and work it well. That can add up to a serious pile of money fast -- doubly bad if their scam takes money out of the registers and into the pockets of the naughty boys.