ALT.SF4M

  Pulling the wool over their eyes!

   • g*****o@k****.****t.net
     20/06/1996 00:00:000 UTC

     Here are two stories how I beat the computers at the Super Markets

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     I might have told this story to several 4mites already, so here it goes.

     Last summer I walked over from work to the Edwards supermarket to pick
     up

     some dinner and something to drink. It was going to be a long night.

     After wating 10 minutes, it was my turn to pay for my stuff.

     My patience was growing thin when the bar-code reader couldn't read the

     price on one of the expensive things I was trying to buy. So I did

     something to solve the problem. When the cashier passed the item over
     the

     scanner, I imitated the *beep* sound that it makes when it read the item

     correctly.

     To my surprise, she took the item and passed it along and went to the

     next item. I couldn't believe that I beat the system! Arrrrooo! So it

     comes to show, you can still pull the wool over the computer's eyes!

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     When I was living at the Chandler Estates, I found that the PathMark

     Supermarket around the corner has a flaw in their computer. There was a

     logic error in their coupon subprogram. It shouldn't be called a flaw,
     it

     should have been called a FEATURE.

     It turned out that you can redeem coupons for items that you didn't

     purchase! So if you have "...save $1.00 on this shampoo" or "...save
     $.75

     on this mustard" coupons, you didn't need these products to save money.
     I

     did this for about a 6 months before they caught on and modified their

     programs. I must have saved a couple hundred dollars.

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     I'll keep the people in this story anonymous to protect myself. These

     two computer guys that we all know decided to pull the wool over some

     store. They printed up their own bar-code labels and bought High-density

     disks for the price of the Low Density disks. As far as my knowledge

     goes, they did this only once to see if it could be done.

     --Glen