A Nebraska woman allegedly found a lucrative quirk at a gas station pump — double-swipe the rewards card and get free gas!

Unfortunately for her, you can’t do that, prosecutors said. The 45-year-old woman was arrested March 6 and faces felony theft charges accusing her of a crime that cost the gas station nearly $28,000.

Prosecutors say the woman exploited the system over a period of several months. Police learned of the problem in October when the loss-prevention manager at Bosselman Enterprises reported that the company’s Pump & Pantry in Lincoln had been scammed.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Receiving free gas is a function of the gas card. Responsibility lies with the company and team who designed the card, not with the woman who used the card as designed.

    • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
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      I totally agree and share this sentiment among MMOs.

      If you design your game or product like shit and there are exploits, it’s YOUR FAULT for designing it with exploits, not the customer’s fault for actually using them.

      If they don’t like it, then they can do better.

      Please put me on this jury. Fastest not-guilty verdict ever.

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        What’s your address and how good is your home security system?

        I mean if I can find a way to get into your house and rob you without immediately getting caught, I shouldn’t be convicted even if the cops later find evidence later. Right?

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      It’s not a gas card though, it’s a reward card.

      Those are designed to give back at most some small % of your purchase if you use enough money.

      If a security van crashed in front of you and spilled out gold, would you be allowed to take it because “it’s their responsibility to not crash”?

      I’m all for fucking corporations, but your rhetoric seems flawed.

      • quindraco@lemm.ee
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        Bad analogy, on multiple fronts. Better:

        A truck is on its way to deliver gold to you (you have been told this is happening). When it gets to you, the driver hands you a gold bar. You say, “Thanks! Can I have another?” The driver hands you a second bar. Then you are charged with theft of the second bar, presumably because it was illegal to ask for it.

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          Right, I just had this happen with a stove. I ordered one, guy came to deliver it, then said we have another in your name, do you want it? LoL

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            “I mean sure, why not, I’ll take it”

            FBI chopper rips into view with multiple black unmarked SUVs following suite, surrounding you. FBI raid team begins to zip line down from the chopper. Guy takes his “J&J delivery” nylon jacket off only to reveal a nylon FBI jacket underneath.

            “Nice try, punk”

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          Not the same, because there’s a person who’s supposed to say “no”.

          Yes, the computer is also supposed to say “no”, but surprisingly, laws don’t regard computers and people as being inherently the same thing when it comes to criminal liability.

          More like you pay someone for gold. While delivering the gold to you, the gold delivery vehicle falls over and spills all the gold on the ground. Is it now yours?

          Property laws exist for a reason. There’s even intangible property, like intellectual property. Although most IP laws are complete and utter bullshit, since they haven’t been around for nearly as long and have been lobbied to be whatever grotesque things they currently are.

          And that wouldn’t necessarily be theft in your example, more like slight fraud, insofar that you’re basically convincing the driver (the automated computer in the real life example, which is why people and computer aren’t comparable, and now we have to consider this person to be some sort of mindless drone for the purposes of this hypothetical) that you are due two gold bars, even when you know it’s fraudulent and you’re only supposed to get one.

          Because we all know the rewards system isn’t supposed to give out free gas. If you’re a person who’s cognitively capable of understanding what a rewards system is, you’re capable of understanding that.

          What a reasonable person might do in that case is perhaps get gas free a few times, but there’s no way of arguing that a reasonable person took 28 000 dollars worth of gas without realising he was doing a serious crime.

          • Gabu@lemmy.world
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            Property laws exist for a reason.

            Yes, to protect rich fucks and guarantee they can hoard as much wealth as possible.

      • deeferg@lemmy.world
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        Seems to me like the reward was free gas.

        If you’ve developed your system that the rewards card can provide a bypass to free fuel, your system is the flawed one and it isn’t on the customer to provide feedback. This isn’t a user testing scenario, they should have solved this bug before it went to production.

        People aren’t responsible for cheaply built solutions.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          If you’ve developed your system that the rewards card can provide a bypass to free fuel,

          Why would any company design such an easy hack to give out free gas? It’s obviously a malfunction, which happen all the time.

          Hell, even game developers rarely leave in consoles for cheat commands anymore in videogames, and giving those out don’t actually bankrupt the company they’re making the game for.

          • Pheonixdown@lemm.ee
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            It’s not the customer’s responsibility to try to figure out why and make some determination if the too good to be true deal is real. If it gave it out for a penny, is that too much of a deal? What about half price? 1 penny discount? Where’s the line?

            Regardless, I could see someone designing it as a feature because “nobody would ever swipe their card twice normally”.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              Where’s the line?

              I hope you don’t think that’s a new observation by any means. If you’re genuinely interested, why not look it up?

              First off, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

              Secondly, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus

              The man on the Clapham omnibus is a hypothetical ordinary and reasonable person, used by the courts in English law where it is necessary to decide whether a party has acted as a reasonable person would. The term was introduced into English law during the Victorian era, and is still an important concept in British law. It is also used in other Commonwealth common law jurisdictions, sometimes with suitable modifications to the phrase as an aid to local comprehension.

              The more general concept (the one in use in the US, for instance) is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person

              I’d like to see a lawyer who would argue that “any reasonable person living and functioning in society could conceivable construe that them taking 28 000 dollars worth of gas was definitely the system working as designed, and they were at no point aware that they were doing anything illlegal.”

              Regardless, I could see someone designing it as a feature because “nobody would ever swipe their card twice normally”.

              Ugh, really? In software development, or in developing anything that involves an end-user, such things are taken into consideration. Especially when there’s payment cards involved.

              Quote by a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park on why it is hard to design the perfect garbage bin to keep bears from breaking into it: “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”

              • Pheonixdown@lemm.ee
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                I’d like to see a lawyer who would argue that “any reasonable person living and functioning in society could conceivable construe that them taking 28 000 dollars worth of gas was definitely the system working as designed, and they were at no point aware that they were doing anything illlegal.”

                “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”

                “I thought I’d won some kind of free gas contest, why else would my card give free gas?”

                People can honestly be idiots as you pointed out.

                The business holds all the cards when it comes to asking for and accepting payment. If they failed to do that in the way they wanted, it’s on them.

                Ugh, really? In software development, or in developing anything that involves an end-user, such things are taken into consideration. Especially when there’s payment cards involved.

                Thanks for the good laugh, this indicates way more faith in business side middle managers than is due. They ask for dumb shit all the time and make the devs do it. While I can’t rule out it being some kind of coding defect, because those also happen all the time, there’s definitely a non-zero probability that someone asked for it to work this way because it was convenient to operate or cheap to implement. Companies involved in payment processing are far from infallible, they just eat their mistakes and make the customer whole most of the time. I’ve worked at 2 different large banks, shit is held together with duct tape, prayers and throwing money at it some of the time.

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  People are idiots.

                  For instance, if they don’t understand law and refuse to look it up, they might still argue something ridiculous that’s closer to how primary schoolers think law works.

                  “I thought I won a contest so I drained 28 000 dollars worth of gas

                  You can say that in court, but it’s not true and no-one would believe it. One, maaybe two times of tanking for free you could still do with that excuse and maybe get away with it.

                  28 000 dollars worth?

                  Nope.

                  Thanks for the good laugh, this indicates way more faith in business side middle managers than is due

                  You might have developed something, but you’ve clearly never worked with developing/coding actual payment systems. To even suggest someone would even think about putting in a “hack” like that is, no offense, quite silly indeed. And definitely criminal.

                  Fuck ups happen all the time. But no-one puts in a designed function which gives out gas. That’s laughable. Ridiculous. Childish.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Most gas cards are designed to give out small rewards, this particular gas card was designed to give out bigger rewards.

        If an ice cream scooper mistakenly gives one person a larger scoop than anyone else, I don’t blame the person with more ice cream, that’s obviously the responsibility of the ice cream scooper.

        Designing a rewards card that functions correctly and a car crashing because presumably something has gone wrong are very different situations.

        A deer didn’t kick the fuel pump, wires weren’t damaged in the register; everything worked as it was designed to, including the double swipe resulting in free gas.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          That’s not how the rewards work though.

          There’s basically an account to which you accumulate your entire spendings, and based off that, you’ll get a a few % off at most, in form of either a flat out discount or perhaps in some other form.

          “Designing IT systems that function perfectly” is what you meant to say with “designing a rewards card that functions correctly”. Do you have any idea of how many technologies and codes and databases are interacting with such a “simple” thing as showing your rewards card to a reader? I’m guessing not.

          “Everything worked as it was designed to”

          So you think someone designed a system to give out free gas? What a great business model. Perfect design, isn’t it?

          • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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            Sorry, but if they didn’t test their hardware against swiping twice, that’s 100% on them. Obviously you can’t catch every bug but that doesn’t make it not your fault when something slips through. A responsible company doesn’t blame the user, it fixes the problem and then figures out how to improve development and QA practices so it doesn’t happen again.

            It’s not the user’s job to QA your product. If the product allows them to do something without tampering with it, that might as well be its design.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              Yeah because updates to software never happen.

              What are you, 5?

              might as well be

              But it isn’t. And intent is a very big part in law.

              Learn some law.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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            You’ve made many incorrect assumptions.

            “‘Designing IT systems that function perfectly’ is what you meant to say”

            No, that is not what I meant to say

            “Do you have any idea of how many technologies and codes and databases are interacting with such a “simple” thing as showing your rewards card to a reader? I’m guessing not.”

            Guess all you want; yes, I do.

            “So you think someone designed a system to give out free gas?”

            Obviously.

            “What a great business model.”

            No, it’s a terrible business model because you receive no compensation for the resources you’re selling.

            That company should refine their design.

      • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
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        As always, it depends on what the courts say.

        That said, yeah it kind of is on them not to crash. If I was on that jury, I would vote ‘not-guilty’ to anyone who picked up money that was laying around on the ground, especially if it’s public property.

        My mom once paid a painter hundreds of dollars in cash, and he lost most of it when pulling his hand out of his pocket and the money blew away. Anyone who finds that money should get to keep it.

        A bootlegger was acquitted in the US for killing his wife during Prohibition after he got out of jail and found out she sold all his stuff. He literally admitted to doing it and the jury said “not guilty” and cheered when the verdict was read.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          it depends on what the courts say.

          The court decide what laws are to be enforced, the laws being decided by the legislative part of the government, which is formed of the people, who are you.

          So indirectly, our subjective morality decides what the courts say, indirectly. I’m asking what your innate sense would tell you to do in that hypothetical?

          My mom once paid a painter hundreds of dollars in cash, and he lost most of it when pulling his hand out of his pocket and the money blew away. Anyone who finds that money should get to keep it.

          Well, in transactional situations that would be pretty subjective. Who fudged it? Subjective. Depending on the sum, there could definitely be an argument.

          And what if it was like an open check (btw checks are not a thing everywhere, I’ve seen maybe a dozen in my life and I’m 34, they’re so insecure we don’t use them) for a million dollars? With the value, it would definitely be different.

          I think there are laws about lottery coupons as well. Different ones for different places in the world, but still.

          Some of those laws say for instance you have to return it, but also that returning something very valuable gives you the right to a finder’s fee.

          So “finder’s keeper’s” isn’t quite as simple as we’d like to.

          In this specific instance, I really don’t mind someone having abused the system, but technically it would be at least a bit of fraud here. Tanking up once or twice for free would be an understandable happy accident, draining 28k worth of gas is clearly malicious and organised theft.

          I don’t mind the occasional theft from corporations, but 28k is a bit beyond the normal robin hooding. Corporations suck currently but we can’t replace a thieving system with a system with even more thieving.

          Casual thieving fine, but this is rather organised

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          It’s going to come down to, was there reason to suspect the machine was a bug?

          I assume she swiped rewards, and the. Swiped rewards again when it was asking for a credit/debit card; in which case it’d be the card equivalent of trying to pay with Monopoly money.

      • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        If you used a glitch to get a high score in a video game, should the developers be allowed to call the police on you?

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          Are you stealing someone’s property?

          No. You’re playing a videogame.

          If they accidentally left a hole in their code that allowed you an infinite money glitch in a large MMO, you probably wouldn’t be sued, as you’ve rather generated money than stolen it, despite it having real world value. However if you systematically abuse a gold thing, even making bots to do it for you, on a large scale, then it could be seen as criminal. (I believe Runescape has had cases like that.)

          If they left a glitch in their system that allowed you access to their main server and you managed to easily get access to the whole company’s finances, should they be allowed to call the cops on you?

      • Masterblaster420@lemmy.world
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        and that’s why goose and gander thinkers will always be at the bottom of the ladder. it’s ok when the good guys do it, it’s not okay when the bad guys do it. choose chaotic good and we start winning. choose lawful good and you’re a sucker.

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    Bullshit. Corpo’s build a system that users figure out and use? Sounds like they got caught with their pants down and have to make an example. Fucking trolls.

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    If you do it once, good for you. If you do it repeatedly, also good for you. But if you “used 510 times, and more than 7,400 gallons of gas were pumped for free”( in only a 7 month period), I don’t know what you expect. You’re going 2-3 times a day getting 14gal every time.

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        That should be the illegal part. Taking advantage of a loophole should not be illegal. Charging other people so that you can take advantage of the loophole, on the other hand, is a scam.

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        There it is. She got greedy. If she would have just minded her own business and not told anyone and kept it on the down low it would have probably never been figured out. Regardless, this is 100%. The business is responsibility and should not be blamed on anyone else.

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    If she was rich, the response would be, “congratulations!”, and if she was an LLC it would be a fine of… 5 percent?

    • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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      And if there had been an error that charged people more rather than made gas free, it would have required a multiple-year-long class action lawsuit to resolve whereupon affected individuals would have received a few cents in compensation and a few lawyers would have come away much richer.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      Yeah if it turned out my local gas station had been shorting 5% of every gallon for the past 3 years, I wouldn’t be getting back anything close to what they stole from me.

      Sure this lady fucked up and took way too much free gas, but i have zero sympathy for the gas station.

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    If you’re poor and you exploit a loophole you receive a felony theft charge. If you’re rich enough you receive no repercussions and possibly a bonus.

    • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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      No, this isn’t a loophole. She found a way to put the pump into maintence mode and set the price to zero. “The computer let me do it” isn’t much of an excuse. The self checkout at the grocery store lets me tare a steak like it’s bananas, but I’d definitely expect shopplifting charges if I got caught tricking the machine to charge me $0.40/lb for steak so I could fill my bag with steaks. There would be plenty of evidence that what I did was intentional and dishonest.

      She exploited this glitch for $28k worth of gas in just 7 months, presumably for profit. That’s way more gas than a single vehicle would consume in that time.

      This wasn’t a case of just paying what the screen said she owed. This was a case of gaining unauthorized access to the computer and adjusting the price to zero so she could steal at scale.

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        Yet when 2008 happened they got a bail out and a pat on the back. Trick a machine? Felony theft charge. Trick the American people? Bail out.

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        She got greedy. Back when a buddy and I administered our SWIFT platform there were a couple of well publicized exploits of the system for millions. We discussed how easy it would be to write a script to randomly skim a fraction of a cent off of transactions over a long period of time, just don’t get greedy. No one cares about rounding errors.

        If this lady stuck to random fillups for free once every couple of months she probably could have flew under the radar for years and more importantly had a better claim to ignorance if caught.

      • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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        Not “presumably for profit”, definitely for profit. The article mentions one person that paid her $500 for about $700 worth of fuel in that 6 months because she was told it was a discount card. She was literally charging other people for the gas directly. And 7400 gallons of gas in 6 months, that’s well over 100k miles with a low ball estimate for fuel economy. She probably pocketed nearly 20k cash in that time.

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      At first I was with you but I was curious how she used $28,000 worth of gas and I’m kinda not with you anymore. I mean, has is expensive but let’s be realistic, no poor person is buying a year’s wages on gas over 6 months lol

      “All told, the card was used 510 times, and more than 7,400 gallons of gas were pumped for free, the probable cause statement said.” The article also says she was letting other people pay her to use her card to get gas - so the gas pumped out free and they paid her a portion of what the gas would have been if they had paid the actual pump. That’s actually not the kind of thing I can really defend as just putting the poor people down.

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
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        Maybe they should fix their shitty ass software instead of arresting her?

        • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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          Surely you don’t actually believe that the police officers that does the arresting are working a secondary job as software developers?

          • Gabu@lemmy.world
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            Surely you don’t believe I give a shit - the police work for the capital, and the capital wants to punish her.

            • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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              The police works for the government. The government operates by laws. The woman clearly, knowingly, and with intent, set out to commit fraud.

              No. There’s no doubt in my mind that you give shit about what’s actually factual. That much is obvious.

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          They didn’t arrest her. The cops did. If she didn’t want to be arrested, she probably shouldn’t have stolen tens of thousands of dollars worth of gas. She’s a thief, plain and simple. We can rail against a justice system that allows the rich to get away with crimes, while also recognizing that this woman is just a thief and there is no need to defend her.

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        While you’re right, also still sounds like schemes rich business leaders get a wag of a finger over. So it’s not so much about it being too harsh on her, but instead how malicious rich person schemes earn too much leniency.

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      This is what I thought at first too. But after thinking about it more, it kind of falls into cybercrime. I can imagine hearing something like this on darknet diaries.

      • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
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        They do this fun thing in the US for that its called “fucking shoot you”. I agree its all fucked up, but if you go an riot and respond with violence you just die dude. I don’t want somebody else raising my children because I got shot by the sheriffs patrol

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          I’m giggling at the idea of anyone rioting at this woman’s trial over skimming free gas and charging her friends for it. It’d be this one dude running around punching the air and screaming something about our corporate overlords.

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          if you can’t organize well enough to handle a local sheriff’s department, you’re pathetic. give me 5 well-armed and coordinated individuals and i’ll show you how to make the bastards scared of us.

          EDIT: Lemmy is full of little bitch cowards and i’m not going to lose any sleep over the dystopia you limp-wristed fucks inherit.

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            Violence isn’t a way to solve this problem, it would only justify the use of force which the police/military are most willing to do. Fascism develops faster in the face of violence as a way to justify itself.

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              7 months ago

              the threat of force has always been the elephant in the room for any society. if you’re scared to fight back, you will be bullied.

            • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              That poster literally told me that being rational was bad. They are beyond gone.

  • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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    7 months ago

    $28,000 of gas in a few months? Yeah no shit. Find something like this and keep it to personal use if you must. Probably could’ve kept it under the radar or an amount small enough to settle without criminal charges if caught.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah no shit. Find something like this and keep it to personal use if you must

      Nah.

      Figure out how it works, don’t use personal card, get a new one (getting a rewards card to someone who doesn’t actually exist shouldn’t be too hard), then exploit the fuck out of it.

      Remember to use balaclava at the pump, and don’t use your own car.

      • andrewta@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I’m going to go out on a limb and say wouldn’t work anyway.

        Stations have cameras.

        Cars have plates.

        They’d track the car to the owner and the owner would point fingers at who borrowed the car.

        The camera would show the face of who was pumping the gas.

        • Copythis@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          What if you just went on foot with 5 gallon containers, didn’t do it frequently, and never went to the same gas station a second time?

          • andrewta@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Might be an option. But if you never went a second time you’d run out of stations that are reasonably close. But yeah going on foot and not doing it a lot might be an option… Unless the card was in your name lol

        • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It’s not easy to read license plates from normal CCTV cameras unless they are pointing at the right spot. I used to install them at gas stations and the owners were almost always surprised by this. The best they can usually get is make, model, and color. Maybe newer cameras are better but I’m guessing the vast majority are using cheap cameras.

          • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            You can read license plates with a 5mp camera, you just need to have a narrow fov. If you have a wide angle lens, then you’re not going to be able to read them without more resolution.

            • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Right. And most installs have a wide lens to capture as much as possible. Otherwise, you’d need a lot more cameras and gas station owners are cheap as hell from my personal experience.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Just steal plates of another car. Not really a big deal or hard to pull off. And even without a mask, you can use just basic shades and ballcap.

          I mean, the risk of getting caught is still very much there, but I’d say it’s very much lower than if you use your own plates, your own rewards car and a clear face.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        You’re forgetting the video footage. They can reconstruct everything from there.

        Keep it low and spread it around. Things never come out perfect and nobody notices small discrepancies because there is more important work to do than worry about it.

      • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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        7 months ago

        Lots of extra work outside of the extra rewards card, when you all have to do is: wear a medical mask, and walk up and use fuel containers.

      • StereoTrespasser@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        What is this weird Lemmy world? Are you seriously saying that you’d wear a mask at the pump (already a huge LOOK AT ME I’M SUSPICIOUS problem), use someone else’s car, drive to where your car is parked, then siphon the gas into your car…all to get a free tank of gas?

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Not at all.

          I’m saying that’s how the people who would like to steal some should do it.

          Also, a free tank of gas (where I live) would be worth like 100-150€, so not insignificant to non-spoiled people

  • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Please put me on that jury so I can vote not guilty.

    “Stealing” from the ruling class is always okay because it’s not stealing, it’s reclamation.

        • TwentySeven@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          They don’t make much profit off gas, but they do own it. They pay several thousand dollars when the truck comes to fill up the tanks, and they make that money back when they sell it. I’ve never heard of gas on consignment, or whatever you are talking about

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I don’t think there is a single accurate thing you’ve said in your post. You literally just made up facts to fit your conclusion. You act like you’ve never seen two gas stations across the street from each other with different prices.

      • Masterblaster420@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        there’s a very good chance that if you own a gas station that you are part of a very small percentage of wealth in your community. it may not be equal to the 1% of the global population, but the result is the same - you profit from the distribution of a product that is almost completely necessary for the working class to function.

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    7 months ago

    When I was a kid, I used a vending machine that had a busted coin return button; it counted the coins I put in, but also spat them back out, so I got some free snacks.

    Come and get me, cops.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    lots of people could still be doing this if this lady hadn’t been such an entrepeneur about it. If you ever discover something like this don’t tell anyone about and don’t abuse it too much; plausible deniability is far better a shield than a small pile of money - saying “oh I didnt realize” is far easier if you don’t set up some kind of pyramid scheme around it.

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    7 months ago

    To all the people defending her, how is this different than just pumping and driving away? You could always pump first and pay inside later, and it works on the honour system. In this case she clearly intentionally circumvented paying.

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      7 months ago

      It’s different in that they gave her a card that says “here is a discount”.

      If you go into a store, pay with a stack of coupons from that store and walk out with a free chicken, can the store come back and charge you with a felony because they made a mistake and claim they didn’t really mean to print the coupon?

      How far can this go? Buy a car on sale and then get arrested for not paying the full price afterwards? “The customer should have known the deal was too good.”

      • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        Swiping the card twice puts the machine into maintenance mode where she manually adjusted the price to zero. That’s pretty straightforward theft.

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          7 months ago

          If you’re putting maintenance mode behind 2 normal swipes I don’t understand how that isn’t your fault

          • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            TIL: If the lock is easy enough to pick, you can legally break in and take whatever you want. /s

            • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Not saying it isn’t theft. Just pointing out the fact that putting maintenance mode behind 2 swipes (as if no one’s ever had to re-swipe a card before) is as stupid as using an easy to pick lock on whatever you want to protect. I dont slam lock my door everyday, I add an extra factor of protection by using more than just slam lock.

          • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            We get it and all agree that rich people should also be held accountable for their crimes. You don’t need to convince anyone here.

            The difference between you and those of us not defending her is that only one of us is defending exploiting a fault in the system for personal benefit.

          • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            Ia your entire argument here that because the ultra-rich get away with financial crimes that everyone should be allowed to commit them?

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              My entire argument is that we have misplaced priorities. In my lifetime the airlines got two bailouts, the auto industry got two bailouts, the banks got 3 bailouts, and a whole fuckton of fake GOP connected companies got Covid money.

              We are talking about a trillion fucking dollars if you add it all up and adjust for inflation. A trillion fucking dollars stolen from us. That is the priority, not someone who got a discount on gasoline by using a rewards card.

              When I see everyone C level at Bane Capital, Haliburton, American Airlines, Goldman, GM, and those that worked at Sterns behind bars then I will worry about this lady. The law should bind those at the top more than those at the bottom.

              You can also arrest Thomas and Alito while you are at it for taking bribes.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        If she went to a gas station one time and swiped her card and it gave her free gas, it’s reasonable to think that she might have assumed the discount gave her free gas on the first use. This wouldn’t be an issue.

        When she’s using it to get over $20,000 in gas, selling gas to others by using her double swipe technique, that falls well outside the reasonable bounds of an honest mistake.

        So no, there is no slippery slope where you’re going to be locked up for a store misapplying a coupon or whatever.

      • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Used to be the norm in the US until about 15 years ago . Before cards took over and many people were paying cash, it allowed customers to fill their tank. It’s still common in Europe.

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      7 months ago

      That may have worked in the past, but not recently, at least not around here. Pump won’t function until the attendant activates it. (Per the signs, “cash customers pay before dispensing gas.”)

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    7 months ago

    Gas Pumps are calibrated for the flow that comes from fully opening the valve by pressing handle all the way down.

    Do with that information what you will.