Loopholes are… interesting, to say the least. There’s the obvious gain more for less deal or gain something when you should’ve gotten nothing, but there’s also the excitement of finding the loophole and seeing it work. Some are more obvious than others (both in terms of discovering the loophole and someone figuring out that you’ve done it in the first place), but it’s exciting nonetheless.
And folks on Reddit were sharing this excitement in a recent AskReddit thread, where they answered the question what loophole did you exploit before someone found out?
#21
I went to high school in the late 90s, when the internet was basically the wild west. Certain terms and domains were blocked on the school computers, but you could navigate to some pretty shady sites by simply following links.
We had a game where we'd start on disney dot com and click links and see who could get to the "worst" site. It was a mildly amusing way to waste time during class.
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45points
So, where do we draw the line? No matter how you look at it, exploiting a loophole does pose a non-zero chance of facing consequences. Direct or indirect.
First, and foremost, ask yourself whether abusing this particular loophole is breaking the law? If it is, better not do it. If it isn’t, then proceed at your own risk, but at a lesser risk. But still at risk.
#22
Not me, but my roommate in college. Whenever you paid for anything on the university's website you'd earn "college bucks". Each year's tuition paid for something small like a beer coozy, fold up lawn chair, or if you somehow spent an absurd amount, an official school-branded kayak.
Well my buddy found out that the points were added to your account BEFORE payment went through on the website. So he just refreshed the page over and over and got millions of points. I only found out his scheme when I came home to an entire living room filled with boxes from our school! There were shirts, coolers, chairs, cups, and of course the kayak. We opened all of it (like idiots) and had a giant laugh at the school's expense. All of the guys living in that house were having a great time until we opened the smallest box which had 1000 $100 Visa gift cards. Then we got scared. A bunch of school-branded c**p from a warehouse was probably unusual, but not something that would bother the person loading all that up for delivery. The gift cards though? That was where he got caught. The gift card issuer called the school to verify such a large amount before activating the cards and THAT raised a lot of red flags in the accounting department. They traced it all back to my roommate and came and took everything back (they left the opened items and the worthless gift cards) and suspended him during his final semester of college. He had to write an apology letter and do community service for the school for that whole semester in return for not pressing charges for fraud. It makes for a great story though, and we had a ton of beer coozies and gift cards that we threw at each other like ninja stars.
Well my buddy found out that the points were added to your account BEFORE payment went through on the website. So he just refreshed the page over and over and got millions of points. I only found out his scheme when I came home to an entire living room filled with boxes from our school! There were shirts, coolers, chairs, cups, and of course the kayak. We opened all of it (like idiots) and had a giant laugh at the school's expense. All of the guys living in that house were having a great time until we opened the smallest box which had 1000 $100 Visa gift cards. Then we got scared. A bunch of school-branded c**p from a warehouse was probably unusual, but not something that would bother the person loading all that up for delivery. The gift cards though? That was where he got caught. The gift card issuer called the school to verify such a large amount before activating the cards and THAT raised a lot of red flags in the accounting department. They traced it all back to my roommate and came and took everything back (they left the opened items and the worthless gift cards) and suspended him during his final semester of college. He had to write an apology letter and do community service for the school for that whole semester in return for not pressing charges for fraud. It makes for a great story though, and we had a ton of beer coozies and gift cards that we threw at each other like ninja stars.
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41points
#23
I once got a CatDog piggybank by clicking their online game’s “next” button repeatedly for more points. It was the second prize, but it was the neatest thing ever.
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41points
#24
McDonald’s app uses to give out free ice coffee with 1 dollar purchase. After doing this daily they finally nerfed it to 5 dollar purchase for free ice coffee.
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41points
Next up, ask yourself is it affecting someone else? If not you, then someone else might get into trouble over this, and your benefit might mean imposing a disadvantage on someone else.
And if you’re thinking about that, also consider if it’s worth it. Does the benefit outweigh the risk of, say, losing a job or getting a fine?
#25
Not intentionally, but I discovered after the fact that a $29 bottle of local wine at the market wasn’t on clearance for $6, it was a mistake in the system. It was really good and I probably bought 6 bottles or so over three-ish weeks. .
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41points
#26
Up until mid-2023, in the Subway app you could type 599footlong in the coupon code section and any footlong would be $5.99. Then one day everything changed. .
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37points
#27
Shell airmiles coupons.
99% of the people in my local shell station didnt care about collecting them. The cashier would tear them out (they came in a coupon book) and they would be stacked to one side and given to whoever asked for them.
I had a company car at the time and stopped in quite regularly. I asked for them. I got a whole load of them before shell stopped the promotion.
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35points
Lastly, consider your personal reputation. Sure, you might not care and can take a hit, but if you’re a big deal in your area, would that set a good example?
Rules, no matter the system, shouldn’t be broken, but loopholes soften the blow, in some ways, and if nobody is there to see you do it, it might just be a mystery of how this one machine seems to be dishing out 3 cans of soda at once.
#28
My college had a "points" based meal plan. 100 "points" equaled approx. $6.50. We used special credit card swipers that were able to swipe our IDs when using these points.
Midway through my first year, they decided to install self serve kiosks that could give you cash back. If you swiped your card as if you were going to pay, asked for cash back on the kiosk, and then canceled the transaction on the special swiper before it went through on the main kiosk, it would give you cash without deducting the points. So basically free money.
As far as I could tell, nobody found out I was doing it because I never saw any point deductions from my ID card and nobody ever talked to me about it. I made about $300 for free. They disabled the cash back option after a couple weeks though.
Edit: I should add, this was before tap-to-pay or EMV chips. The whole system was obviously very shoddily put together.
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33points
#29
I received thousands of dollars of stock certificates in the mail. Some intern f****d up so badly that my broker said to hold on to it. I held the stock for years before selling it at a profit.
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33points
#30
Microsoft back in the day had a marketplace that used Microsoft points. You could buy games, xbox controllers, xboxes etc but it was a marketing program that just wanted you to use bing instead of google.
I can't remember most games but I know there was a game called chicktanary or something like that and me being a little turd who liked computers, I found a bot that played the game for me.
I got so much free s**t from that. lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicktionary.
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29points
So, what are some loopholes that you’ve abused in your life? Or wished that you had? Share your stories in the comment section below!
And if you haven’t had enough yet, then you can continue scrolling through more loophole inspiration.
#31
Parking spot in the corner of my college dorm lot. It wasn’t a spot as it had a parking curb placed in its location (like, parallel in the middle of the spot, not marking the end of the spot where the front wheels would bump). My car sat high enough that I parked there for a good year before I got my wheel booted. Still saved $1500.
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27points
#32
Coming in to senior year in High School, a couple dozen of us were competing for the top 1% for GPA. Honors classes were on a 5.0 scale instead of a 4.0, so gave a big bump to your average. Very few electives were honors, mostly just core classes. One of my friends noticed that there was a Math 1/2 honors class that none of us took - we all took it in middle school and went straight into Math 3/4. We looked up the policy and nothing said you couldn’t go back and take a lower level class, so 3 of us signed up for the honors Math 1/2 course with freshman. The teacher sat us in the back. I worked on calculus or physics homework or played Minecraft on my phone. Teacher completely ignored us.
Half a dozen people did it the next year. The year following when by younger brother and his friends tried to do it, they changed the policy.
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27points
#33
No one ever found out, but they didn't know how to set up Unix when I was in college. You could drop to the parent directory in programming classes, and go into the other classmates folders see how they were coding their projects. Just in case you couldn't figure out a section of your code...
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25points
#34
I bought something from Dollar Shave Club once, my order came and I thought that was the end of that. But 2 months later I got another package from Dollar Shave Club filled with stuff, razors blades, handles, shave butter, face wash etc. I checked all my credit cards and had no new charges from DSC. I kept all the stuff they sent and moved in with my life 2 months after that I got another package of razor blades from DSC.
One day I was looking though an alt email account and found some emails from DSC alerting me to update payment information and shipping confirmation. Turns out I had made another DSC account prior but for some reason someone else's order and credit card information was linked to my account. Their CC# was no longer valid and this is where the loophole begins.
Every month DSC would try to process a subscription order for razor blades. It would fail because the CC# on the account wasn't valid, but the month after that it would complete the order, maybe because there was an order from the previous month that wasn't fulfilled. So every other month I would get razor blades from DSC. I started adding a bunch of stuff like hair gel, face wash, etc. This went on for 2 years before they realize.
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11points
#35
Was told in my first day on the job at six flags that our till could be $25 off each day without anyone noticing or caring.
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-22points
While exploring loopholes, one might encounter fascinating stories of individuals seeking freedom just as those who choose an unconventional life on the road. For instance, the daring approaches to living past norms parallel the spirit of van lifers like Amelise Burr, who has embraced a lifestyle emphasizing self-sufficiency and adventure.
Learning about such bold choices adds a layer of understanding to the creative use of loopholes seen today. To delve deeper into this adventurous way of life, consider reading more about embracing freedom on the road.