Loopholes—like holes in Swiss cheese, they’re everywhere, and they’re giving some people real-life cheat codes that border on dishonesty and even stealing. But you need to be very perceptive and to have the cunning of a Slytherin to notice and use them to your advantage.
Redditor SterlingBoardman asked their fellow internet users to share what loopholes they’d exploited for years before someone found out. Some of these are devilishly delightful and we’re not sure if we should be angry or impressed. Check them out, dear Pandas, and give the ones that impressed you an upvote. Let us know what loopholes you’ve exploited in life in the comments and what you think about people who use them in real life.
However, just because something is technically allowed doesn’t mean that it’s done in the Spirit of the Law. [Add holy chanting sounds.] While loopholes can help some people live a better life, others can use them for less than admirable purposes. And, in some ways, using loopholes is a lot like cheating. Besides, somebody ends up getting the short end of the stick in most cases. Whether it’s a small mom and pop store or a mega-million multinational corp.
#21
At my current apartment complex, they just changed the laundry machines so you need to use this super s**tty slow app. I found out if you press start on the app and start on the machine and then back out of the app while it’s “chatting” with the machine, the machine will start but won’t charge any money.
Been washing and drying for free for a few months.
App name is similar to smallGS or smallPayments
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64points
#22
Bank of America would give you 3% cash back points on gas purchases. Back when I did this, I was a heavy smoker, and realized by coincidence that if I paid for gas inside and made other purchases, that I would still get 3%
So buying like $1 of gas and cartons upon cartons of cigarettes became my thing.
Now I dont smoke anymore though, which is even better savings :)
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64points
#23
Whole Foods used to have bacon on the Breakfast Bar. Cooked bacon weighs almost nothing! I would get a pound of cooked bacon for $8.00 It lasted almost a week! Bacon crumbles for the salad, for the turkey sandwich, and the 100 other things that you can toss bacon into!
I used this method for almost a year, then they stopped putting bacon out....sigh......
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60points
#24
Worked out how to get the jackpot every time on a Connect 4 fruit machine in a pub I used to drink in.
It would cost about £5-£10 before you'd get into the bonus round, then when you did, you'd play a connect 4 game against the machine.
You place the first counter, and then after the machine places the next counter, you mirror the machines move. Every game ends in a draw, and you win the jackpot, which was £50.
The pub landlord removed the machine after around 3 months as it was regularly empty, basically paid for my drinking and more for 3 months!
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55points
#25
About 10yrs ago American Eagle distributed $10 off $10 purchase coupons on my campus. No restictions. I asked nicely and one of the reps gave me a STACK of them. Guess how much socks and underwear were? $10.50. It was years before I ever paid more than .50 for a pair of either. Sunglasses were like $2. Flip flops. The accessories world was mine for the flaunting.
Never saw that deal again.
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55points
#26
When we had a daily limit of one hour on our AOL account my sister figured out if you unplugged the phone line during your session and logged back in it reset your hour
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54points
#27
At my old job we had a vending machine in the basement that gave change back when you bought something. Sometimes it gave more than you paid. No one used this machine as the basement was being reconstructed but it was regularly filled.
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50points
#28
The thing we clocked in on when I worked at Kmart would round to the closest quarter hour. So by clocking in 8 minutes early, and clocking out 8 minutes after my shift, I got paid for 30 minutes rather than for the 16 minutes. By exploiting this, I was paid 2.5 hours of overtime a week. Cumulatively, during my time there, this added up to about 6.5 weeks of extra pay. I wasn’t ever caught, though.
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49points
#29
Circa Late 80s. You could make a long distance collect call from a pay phone, and charge it to a private number. The operator would call the other number to confirm. We’d ask the operator to call the number of another pay phone nearby,and have a friend authorize the call. Free long distance for almost a year.
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42points
#30
Got keys to a new flat on a Friday afternoon, the place had electric but it wasn't in my name.
Went to the electric company just before closing and the lady said "flat 8 you say....... Hummm we only have record of 7 flats on that building. Tell you what (glances at the clock) come back Monday with the serial number on your meter, and we'll get you all hooked up"
I never went back and enjoyed free electric for over 2 years until i moved out.
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21points
