Met up with some friends today who I haven't seen for over 20 years and went for a surf. Oh we had some laughs.

At one point we discussed this fantastic scam we used to pull off - it worked every time and was very simple. I'm sure we did the same thing every weekend for well over a year and never got caught.

We would buy a 4L cask of reisling from the bottleshop. Open the cask up at the bottom, pull the bladder out and drink/store it, fill the bladder back up with water, glue the cask back into place and return it to the bottleshop a few minutes later, asking to swap it for something else - usually telling them that our girlfriends only drank Mosel

It worked every single time without fail. At one point we had that much free wine that we got sick of the taste of it and got creative by rigging up a distillery system. Problem was that we used rubber hosing and the resulting spirit had this horrid burnt rubber taste to it. I still wonder if that raspy cough I have is related to this.

There were a few other small-time scams involving government departments, but they were much harder/riskier/complicated and required advanced acting skills to pull off properly. Possibly, cause we so drunk/hungover and laughing too much when attempting them.

You could never get away with the wine scam nowadays - cctv cameras and stuff.

I love scams. Anyone willing to tell us scams you pulled off on a public forum?

Haha Thats a great scam, imagine the confusion when the next purchaser of that cask brought it back..

A long long time ago I went to the Uk to study, (not a rhodes scholar!)
Long distance phone calls home were prohibitively expensive, until we figured out how to "doctor a phone box"

A little bit of diy in the refund slot with a screwdriver, then insert a load of pound coins. the digital meter in the box would register the amount and deduct them while on the call . if you used a lolly pop stick right in the doctored refund slot the coins would come out but the meter stayed charged .

Did this for 3 years solid phoning long distance.

^^^^ We even thought that part through - the thing is, that when/if the people who bought the water brought it back to the bottleshop it would be a difficult thing for the bottleshop employee to believe them, as the cask had been opened. I can't remember, but I'm sure we may have even tried that scam also.

Oh the laughs we had when we first discovered this perfect scam - priceless.

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Seacht said..
Haha Thats a great scam, imagine the confusion when the next purchaser of that cask brought it back..

A long long time ago I went to the Uk to study, (not a rhodes scholar!)
Long distance phone calls home were prohibitively expensive, until we figured out how to "doctor a phone box"

A little bit of diy in the refund slot with a screwdriver, then insert a load of pound coins. the digital meter in the box would register the amount and deduct them while on the call . if you used a lolly pop stick right in the doctored refund slot the coins would come out but the meter stayed charged .

Did this for 3 years solid phoning long distance.

Same here longggg time back, old pay phones with button A and B on the dial box, connect metal plate in mouth piece to either button A or B while dialling, with a safety pin or such, and away you would go long distance...no cost

Flat complex we lived in as uni students had a coin laundry... Shortly after we moved in, a caretaker left the key in the coin collection box. The wife grabbed it and we never paid for laundry again. Not much of a scam but it was profitable...

That's an absolute cracker Oliver.

Ive got another one which works like an absolute charm. Only to be used at Coles, Woolies, BigW and Kfart for ethical reasons

Its called the Two For One.

Use a trolley and take twice as many of those Green Bags you need and into the bags you place your shopping items, taking two of everything, putting one of each in separate bags. When you've finished take half the shopping through the check out, pay for it and put the bags in the car.

Return to the shop with the receipt and collect the duplicates. Pick up a packet of something else you need and return to the check out to pay for it. Either that or go throught the self checkout. I used to vary tactics to keep it interesting. You can even just walk out without anything because you have the receipt. Or go to the counter and tell them that you've already paid for the stuff, you forgot something but the items are out of stock. It's important to have fun whilst doing it.

Half price groceries. Way to go!

You ou can do it at Kmart for much better profit, half price lures, etc.

When I was about 7 I'd rip a $5 note in half, take half into a bank and say it got caught on an escalator or something. Take other half into bank up the street, say the same. Hard to resist a polite 7 year old.

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japie said..
That's an absolute cracker Oliver.

Ive got another one which works like an absolute charm. Only to be used at Coles, Woolies, BigW and Kfart for ethical reasons

Its called the Two For One.

Use a trolley and take twice as many of those Green Bags you need and into the bags you place your shopping items, taking two of everything, putting one of each in separate bags. When you've finished take half the shopping through the check out, pay for it and put the bags in the car.

Return to the shop with the receipt and collect the duplicates. Pick up a packet of something else you need and return to the check out to pay for it. Either that or go throught the self checkout. I used to vary tactics to keep it interesting. You can even just walk out without anything because you have the receipt. Or go to the counter and tell them that you've already paid for the stuff, you forgot something but the items are out of stock. It's important to have fun whilst doing it.

Half price groceries. Way to go!

You ou can do it at Kmart for much better profit, half price lures, etc.

Often wondered about the self checkout, would have to be easily scammed. Never tried it myself, but will think about it more.

Yep, the two for one is the way to go. Almost the same principle as the cask wine scam. I like it.

I've always loved scamming. Vulnerable young checkout people are good targets, Every so often I try it on, just for a laugh, and it does work. My wife does it all the time, but she's not even trying to scam them - she's just random and hopeless at maths.

When you go to pay someone, you hand them what they expect - a round dollar bill. Just after they take your round dollar bill, you confuse the transaction by pulling out change, and you hand them an unusual amount of coins and more bills and tell them they need to give you $9.00 or whatever back. Most often they don't know, don't want to feel stupid and trust you.

Hahahahhaa

Love those scams where you get those Indian guys one the phone scamming little old ladies for their computer info they are so smart and intelligent!!
how much honor do you get out of cheating ppl well done ya frackin Indian chunts glad it makes ya feel good

The wine refill story reminds me of something, not a scam per se....

But...

a mate used to see the half-cut dopes in nightclubs pick up any beer that had been unattended for a while and drink it

He would go and half fill his empties with amber fluid in the toilet (yeah..... ) and put them on the bar. Piss funny reactions. (pun intended)

:)

gold 10 and 20 sen coins in Malaysia look very very close to $2 coins here in Aus...

Mix them in with a few other coins/notes... fool proof.

Hasn't failed yet

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Darkspi said..
Love those scams where you get those Indian guys one the phone scamming little old ladies for their computer info they are so smart and intelligent!!
how much honor do you get out of cheating ppl well done ya frackin Indian chunts glad it makes ya feel good

Every time I get a phone call from Indian accented "Telstra's Computer Department" and they ascertain that I am indeed who they think I am and then tell me that my connection is going to be disconnected because of "infections" in my computer, I tell them that I dont have a computer and they get confused and hang up. It must be so disconcerting for them

I don't see the difference between a phone scammer ripping people off to scamming "vulnerable young checkout" people by confusing them with change.


Where do you draw the line?

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Test pilot 1 said..

Darkspi said..
Love those scams where you get those Indian guys one the phone scamming little old ladies for their computer info they are so smart and intelligent!!
how much honor do you get out of cheating ppl well done ya frackin Indian chunts glad it makes ya feel good

Every time I get a phone call from Indian accented "Telstra's Computer Department" and they ascertain that I am indeed who they think I am and then tell me that my connection is going to be disconnected because of "infections" in my computer, I tell them that I dont have a computer and they get confused and hang up. It must be so disconcerting for them

We used to get these calls several times a week and it would drive my wife insane........
I don't know why, as I used to love getting the phone calls. At first it was a challenge to see how long I could keep them on the line. My favourite was to pretend that I was old and feeble minded and absolutely needed their help to fix the "viruses" as I don't want my medical equipment to fail . They are ever so eager to help (you can almost here them jumping out of their skin in excitement), but when you start telling them you can't find the on button, whats a window, internet? whats that? They start to loose their patience, but they still persist.......

All the fun ended when the wife had had enough of answering those calls and put us on the do not call register.........





I miss those conversations






I feel so helpless without their assistance

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slammin said..
I don't see the difference between a phone scammer ripping people off to scamming "vulnerable young checkout" people by confusing them with change.


Where do you draw the line?

Erm,

because it's not ripping off the poor checkout chick, it's ripping off the large institutions behind it which make more money than you could ever imagine.

and what about the poor checkout chick who get their ass chewed out for being taken advantage of by you the thieving lieing indian chunt you are. Its your whole mentality thinking your doing a good thing!! by takeing advantage of ordinary ppl
how about the store owner "Franchise" trying to make a liveing while you are trying to rip every one off

So when their till doesn't tally, they don't face any repercussions?

Edit. Darkspi beat me to it.

They're encouraged/forced to pay the differences out of their own pocket. Not legal but its commonplace. So is being cut hours.

No matter how you dress it up, theft is still theft.

As for checkout chicks and counter staff being "encouraged" to make up any shortfall - I have seen that happen plenty of times.

Also seen staff records with notes attached listing shortfalls - with the intent of being used in the next staff assessment as leverage against any potential pay rise, bonus or promotion.

Your enjoyable little "scam" could very well have cost a hard pressed uni student or sole parent their job.

stephen

In the heart of surfers there used to be Grundys. Basically a big video game arcade with some dodgems, bb guns, light guns, and a few other big 'attractions' as well.

Grundys sold tokens that were really pricey for a young teen. They were just slightly larger than a 2c coin. A 2c coin, with the right spin, would count as a token in most games. The trick was evading security, fishing an old token bag out of the bin, going out to the nearby shopping centre and filling it just the right amount from your $2 worth of 2c coins stashed in a pot plant or something.

Every kid that liked video games would work that place, I'd be there and see other kids using a thin plastic ruler, a spark device, a coin on a string. There were other old machines you could just kick and get 99 credits.

I don't have an ethical problem with that, not really depriving them of any income they would have had. (I wasn't ever going to pay $10 for 15 tokens or whatever).

On the other hand using a system to steal a hundred bucks of groceries is just stealing a hundred bucks of groceries.

But discouraging the beer thief is bad....? Weird vibe with the thumbs in this thread

Using a couple of hologram projectors, some black market missles and mini nukes, I brought down a few commercial and government buildings for the purpose of creating a whole raft of irrational fears in the populace, this then allowed me to bring in population control legislation which everyone happily and voluntarily gave up their personal freedoms to accept.
This of course was made easier by my decades old regular, what I like to call my 'dumbing down chemical spray fix it all' program, in which I've been spraying plumes of chemicals regularly from airliners all around the world.
Following on from the legislation, I am now able to boost the profits of my industrial, weapons and oil cartel by using any world superpower I choose to do my dirty work for me, by way of creating a 'war' with any country that has the resources I am after.

I can't believe noone has picked up on what I'm doing, I've been documenting my activities in crop circles for decades.

I'm not without compassion though, no check out chicks have had to pay for any of this from their own pockets.

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kiteboy dave said..
When I was about 7 I'd rip a $5 note in half, take half into a bank and say it got caught on an escalator or something. Take other half into bank up the street, say the same. Hard to resist a polite 7 year old.

You should be in finance

yeah this is all old stuff that I dont condone.

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Seacht said..
Haha Thats a great scam, imagine the confusion when the next purchaser of that cask brought it back..

A long long time ago I went to the Uk to study, (not a rhodes scholar!)
Long distance phone calls home were prohibitively expensive, until we figured out how to "doctor a phone box"

A little bit of diy in the refund slot with a screwdriver, then insert a load of pound coins. the digital meter in the box would register the amount and deduct them while on the call . if you used a lolly pop stick right in the doctored refund slot the coins would come out but the meter stayed charged .

Did this for 3 years solid phoning long distance.

Coke machine in our lines had an STD phone cable attached(for the back to base' I'm empty etc)
You siply unhooked the phone from the wall and plugged it into the coke machine fly lead and hey presto

not something Im overly proud of but when ordinary tomatoes were super crxp at woolies (in the old days)
I used to pull the vine ripened ones off the truss and bag them so they looked like ordinary ones (they way they told the difference was the stems)
also if the parsely bunches were a bit anorexic I'd pull one bunch out of it's plastic outer garment and stuff it in with the other one.
pretty bad I know. Many years ago.

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Darkspi said..
and what about the poor checkout chick who get their ass chewed out for being taken advantage of by you the thieving lieing indian chunt you are. Its your whole mentality thinking your doing a good thing!! by takeing advantage of ordinary ppl
how about the store owner "Franchise" trying to make a liveing while you are trying to rip every one off

I'd say in this particular case it is a scam - it's not theft. I call it taking advantage of a situation - capitalism is built on this. Companies who make huge profits do so by scamming someone somewhere and then they minimise their tax. What they are doing is perfectly legal and it's not called theft by most people either.

The "checkout chick" is just as responsible as the "Franchise" for their inability to read the situation properly. Maybe they need to consider different occupations?

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myusernam said..
not something Im overly proud of but when ordinary tomatoes were super crxp at woolies (in the old days)
I used to pull the vine ripened ones off the truss and bag them so they looked like ordinary ones (they way they told the difference was the stems)
also if the parsely bunches were a bit anorexic I'd pull one bunch out of it's plastic outer garment and stuff it in with the other one.
pretty bad I know. Many years ago.

Yeah.... Woolies and Coles wouldn't scam anyone?

I'd call what you and KBD did a scam, what Jappie suggested and what I did with the wine substitution is much closer to theft.

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oliver said..

The "checkout chick" is just as responsible as the "Franchise" for their inability to read the situation properly. Maybe they need to consider different occupations?

when you deliberately remove conceal replace a produce how is that their fault that they cant read the situation properly and see your a lying cheating thief
If you cant be honest with anyone else at least be honest with your self!

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Darkspi said..
when you deliberately remove conceal replace a produce how is that their fault

It's not - already said that's closer to theft.

Do I feel guilty about substituting wine 30 years ago as a youth - well I never got caught, and I haven't lost any sleep over it since.

I've been scammed plenty of times since. The last memorable time was two month ago, when I got the auto electrician up the road to add gas in my air conditioner. He used an incompatible gas, did not flush the system or oil it. His actions caused my compressor to seize last week.

If the "checkout chick" is unable perform the very job she is employed to do of course she is responsible. The franchisee is also responsible for hiring her.

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oliver said..

Darkspi said..
when you deliberately remove conceal replace a produce how is that their fault

It's not - already said that's closer to theft.

Do I feel guilty about substituting wine 30 years ago as a youth - well I never got caught, and I haven't lost any sleep over it since.

I've been scammed plenty of times since. The last memorable time was two month ago, when I got the auto electrician up the road to add gas in my air conditioner. He used an incompatible gas, did not flush the system or oil it. His actions caused my compressor to seize last week.

If the "checkout chick" is unable perform the very job she is employed to do of course she is responsible. The franchisee is also responsible for hiring her.

Well, why not extend that to say that you as the consumer are responsible for ensuring that only cheap labour is hired by that supermarket. If you didn't choose to have cheaper groceries, you could go to somewhere where the checkout person is a bit more on the ball, but also a bit more expensive. Try and pull the same trick on a person in the local 7-11 and see how far you get.

Since when did it become okay to see who you could screw over in society? I am sure we have all done things like this, either small or big, but it doesn't make it a victimless crime or guilt-free.

I have done things like this in the past, and probably will in the future. In a particular case recently I remember telling the cashier that they gave me too much change, and handed it back. Trust me, if I was down and out I would have had no compulsion about giving it back. But I am not, so for me personally, I prefer to give it back and make society at least feel a bit better.

I wonder if Oliver's air-con mechanic thinks "I stuffed up, I had bettre make it right", or "its his problem, he can't prove a thing, bad luck"?

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sotired said..

Well, why not extend that to say that you as the consumer are responsible for ensuring that only cheap labour is hired by that supermarket. If you didn't choose to have cheaper groceries, you could go to somewhere where the checkout person is a bit more on the ball, but also a bit more expensive. Try and pull the same trick on a person in the local 7-11 and see how far you get.

Since when did it become okay to see who you could screw over in society? I am sure we have all done things like this, either small or big, but it doesn't make it a victimless crime or guilt-free.

I have done things like this in the past, and probably will in the future. In a particular case recently I remember telling the cashier that they gave me too much change, and handed it back. Trust me, if I was down and out I would have had no compulsion about giving it back. But I am not, so for me personally, I prefer to give it back and make society at least feel a bit better.

I wonder if Oliver's air-con mechanic thinks "I stuffed up, I had bettre make it right", or "its his problem, he can't prove a thing, bad luck"?

I drew a picture of you.



In a perfect world there would be no such thing as scams. We also wouldn't need cctv cameras or meta data retention. But sadly, scamming is just part of society. Marketing is all about scamming - take our food labelling. Banks make billions of dollars profit - explain how that is not scamming. Capitalism is all about scamming.

If I can win a few bucks here and there, by pulling off something a little creative, that doesn't hurt someone. I see it more as a small win. I'm not having a go at you for preferring not to scam - that's your preference. Although I'm guessing most people get a little bit of a kick when something goes their way for a change.

I approached my mechanic when my compressor seized and learnt about what happened. He told me that it would have been too expensive to pull out the compressor, flush the system and change the oil. He took the approach "f'ck it that'll do", he just did what he thought was right and would be acceptable to me - without consultation. I could sense some guilt but he just blamed the seized compressor on my car being old. He said he used to do the same thing with old cars in Poland all the time. I think he scammed me.

He may wake up one morning to find "indian scamming chunt" written in his verge with round up. Who knows.

Ha ha - you guys wrestling with "grey areas" in your sense of right and wrong. It's clear as day, black and white: if you pull these kind of stunts some-one some-where suffers for your little victory.

Life's better when you play with a straight bat.