People Share The Loopholes They’ve Exploited The Heck Out Of

The best way to describe a loophole is an unintentional defect or blunder in a system. This glitch might appear on an app or website, in a written law or regulation, or with the operation of a vending machine, for instance.

When it comes to discovering common loopholes, we often catch on quickly. For example, maybe you’ve found out that your local movie theater doesn’t check customers’ tickets, or that your grocery store allows you to use an unlimited number of coupons, even if it means you get to pay nothing for your huge cart of groceries. Basically, loopholes allow others to receive something or get away with doing something, often without getting in trouble, that is, if they catch onto the glitch. In turn of realizing these things, we get ideas…selfish ideas.

After discovering a loophole, we may take advantage of it whether it be to get free stuff, greater discounts, or even cash back. We may continue to exploit it and even tell our family and friends about it, so they too get to benefit from it. Some acts of exploiting a loophole are innocent while others can be more harmful, certainly even illegal.

For the person taking advantage, a loophole is an amazing thing.

However, for the person or business who is unaware of the error in their system, it can be a very bad thing for them, potentially costing them a lot of money, or worse, their business. As a result, once this loophole is caught, it usually gets patched up quickly.

In these stories, people talk about the loopholes they’ve taken advantage of. Although some of these stories are messed up, they will have you dropping your jaw at just how quick and intelligent some people are!

34. Hawaiian Shirts Were A Part Of The Dresscode

“Not very impressive, but at my high school, we had to wear a buttondown and a tie to class every day.

One of the kids realized that they never specified what kind of buttondown it had to be so he wore a Hawaiian shirt to class with a tie. Technically it met the dress code so it stuck. Pretty soon most of the school started wearing Hawaiian shirts with ties to class. We looked like a bunch of ridiculous Jimmy-Buffet-goes-Mormon types but it was worth it to spite the system. They changed the rule to ban Hawaiian shirts a week later.” taylor1288

33. I Discovered A Target Coupon That Gave Me Money Back

“Years ago when I was in college, Target was trying to strengthen its relatively new in-house brand, Market Pantry.

One particular time, they offered a coupon that was ‘$1 off any canned tomato Market Pantry product.’ The coupon was downloadable and could be printed and used multiple times. The thing is, the smallest can of tomato sauce that you could get only cost 49 cents. So my buddy and I decided to test this and printed around 30 coupons. We then went to Target, picked up 30 cans of tomato sauce and then a DVD or something else costing around $20. The 30 cans of tomato sauce would be $15 and the other stuff was $20 for a total of $35, but we had 30 coupons for $1 off.

The question was – will we pay $20 or $5? To our surprise, the coupons scanned for the full $1 off even though the tomato sauce was less, so we ended up paying $5 for everything.
Over the next week, I went back several times, upping the number of tomato sauce cans to around 80 and cleaning out whatever they had in stock. At least two more times, it worked to get the $1 off a 49cent can of tomato sauce, essentially getting the other 51 cents of the coupon applied to whatever else I was buying. The last time I did it, I didn’t have any other stuff I wanted, so I just picked up a $50 iTunes gift card.

The cashier rang up the gift card first and then proceeded to ring up the tomato sauce. This was the first cashier to notice that the coupon was scanning for more than the price of the sauce, so they called over a manager. At this point, I was getting nervous at being discovered in my loophole.
The manager came over and told the cashier that Target would never give people money back for a coupon, so to just ring in enough coupons to make the cost of the tomato sauce zero. So the cashier scanned my coupon a whole bunch of times until my total for the whole order was $0, forgetting that I also had this gift card.

Anyway, I started to leave but the guilt set in because I knew the cashier had scanned the $1 off way more times than the number of cans I had bought because they were just looking to get my order to $0, having forgotten about the gift card.
Anyway, I decided to end the loophole due to my own conscience. I went back to the manager and explained that the cashier had scanned the coupon too many times and that I also had bought a gift card. The manager was surprised at my honesty. He fixed it, and I paid the $50 for the gift card.

However, before he left, he took $15 out of the register, gave it to me, and told me it was a reward for my honesty. I believe I had to sign something to acknowledge this ‘customer loyalty bonus’ or whatever he called it.

I had tomato sauce in food storage for years.” Grant Sleight

32. I Dig In My Movie Theatre’s Trash Can For Free Popcorn Refill Coupons

“At my local movie theatre, popcorn costs about $8, with $5 refills. To actually get people to buy the popcorn, my theatre puts a little tab on the popcorn bucket.

See the little free refill tab? When you are done with your first fill of popcorn, you can go back up to the concession stand and show them your tab.

They will tear it off, next refilling your popcorn for the low, low price of $0.00. I’ve found that they won’t even remember your face after you’ve bought a popcorn, which is very important.
Whenever I go to the movies, I always skip the popcorn line. I walk not into the theatre, but to the bathrooms where there are two trash cans. I make sure no one is looking, and snatch an empty bucket out of the trash can.

9 times out of 10, the tab will still be intact on the bucket. I dump out any remaining popcorn and make my way to the concession stand, where I get my refill.

After my movie, I’ve even taken multiple buckets home with me so I can smuggle them in and not have to go through the trouble of digging through the trash.

Hope this works as well for you as it did for me!” John Curry

31. I Get Two Scoops Of Ice Cream For The Price Of One By Ordering “Half And Half”

Communication skills are everything!

“One time I went to the mall and stopped by my favorite ice cream booth. I never really liked the idea of two scoops of ice cream-it just seemed like a waste of an extra dollar since it’s harder to eat and it can get pretty messy.

But I saw that two of my favorite flavors were available: mint chip and bubblegum. I didn’t want to pay for two individual scoops, so I came up with an ingenious idea to get both.
I went up to the counter and asked for half mint chip, half bubblegum. The counter lady looked kind of confused but then proceeded to scoop up two scoops of the different flavors. At the checkout counter, they had no choice but to charge me with the price of one scoop. I honestly didn’t know what I was expecting, and it turned out way better than I imagined (I thought they would just tell me that they couldn’t do that, but instead they gave me two ‘half’ scoops for the price of one).

This trick works because there is no way to scoop up a half scoop. The ice cream spoon thing can only scoop up a full scoop. So, you will just end up with two full scoops of different flavors. And they can’t turn down your suggestion: half-half seems like an innocent request and they can’t charge you with two scoops.

I have used this trick at every single ice cream place I’ve visited, and it has worked every single time. So yeah, the trick to get two scoops of ice cream in different flavors for the price of one is to ask for half this, half that.

Go on, my children, but remember-with great power comes great responsibility.” Catherine Wu

30. My Mom Got Thousands Of Dollars In Free Clothes And Shut Down The Business

“Now, I’m pretty sure most of you haven’t heard of this because, as I stated, it went out of business. When I was around 11 years old, I used to exclusively buy clothes from this website called ‘Fashion Playtes.’ Fashion Playtes was basically every middle school girl’s dream. It was an online website where you would virtually design clothes and then could buy your designs in real life. Sounds pretty neat, huh?

Well, just when Fashion Playtes was starting to really get out there, my mom struck.

Fashion Playtes had started putting commercials out on TV, gaining more customers and really growing. Then, they made one crucial mistake. They released this coupon thingy. Basically, the coupon was like if you spend 50 dollars, you get a 50-dollar gift card thing called ‘fashion bucks.’
I told my mom about it and she immediately ordered me $100 worth of clothes. I was shocked since my mother usually doesn’t spend much on clothing. However, she soon revealed why exactly she made the expensive purchase. With her large purchase, she received 100 fashion bucks. She then used those 100 fashion bucks to buy my sister and me another $200 worth of clothes, adding up to $100.

She got $200 worth of fashion bucks. She used those fashion bucks to get $200 worth of clothes and got $200 more fashion bucks. I bet you see how this works now.

In the end, my mother ended up getting THOUSANDS of dollars’ worth of free Fashion Playtes clothing. The website caught on eventually and canceled the coupon thingy. A few weeks later, the website closed down. I’ll never know if my mother was the direct cause of that website closing down, but I will always remember how truly iconic that incident was.” Angie Malene

29. I Edited 97 Student Blog Posts To Get An ‘A’ In Biology Class

“This past semester, I needed to take a Biology class with a lab to graduate.

I was told that it was one of the easiest classes at my school to take, but as a lit type, I didn’t agree much. It was so much information all at once, and I found it really boring, so I didn’t do so well on the tests or assignments. I got Cs and Ds, even on the final which I stayed up all night to study for. We also had a class blog. There were about a hundred and twenty of us, and we each had to write three posts per semester on anything biology-related.

I didn’t do well in the lab section, either.

I failed the multiple-choice test and the practical, and I assumed I was f*cked. However, the professor said that if we made comments on our peers’ blog posts, and turned in worksheets to show what edits we made, when, and on what topic, we could get five extra points per edit.

Most kids did two or three. I did 97. Got an A for the semester.” doublementh

28. We Basically Got Free KFC Every Day Just For Filling Out Surveys

If the employees at a restaurant or fast-food chain ask you to fill out a survey, always fill out the survey…

“Back in the 8th grade, a group of friends and I used to take the bus home.

We would transfer over at the bus terminal and then have close to an hour wait for the specific bus that we took. The terminal happened to be in a plaza where there were many fast-food restaurants. One of our favorites was KFC. We all loved KFC and would go there every single day of the week; most of the employees knew us pretty well by then.
We were paying anywhere from $20-$50 a week on KFC chicken. Naturally, money started to run low at some point. That’s when some boys discovered a loophole. KFC had a promotion going on where when you completed their survey (which would take under 2 minutes), you were given a coupon for a free small bucket of popcorn chicken.

That’s worth close to $4.00. To take the survey you needed to enter a code from one of the receipts; it ensured that you actually bought something before taking the survey. The catch was, you only needed to buy something.
After looking at the KFC menu, we quickly determined that for $.50 you can get a cup of gravy. So every day we would walk into KFC and order 1 cup of gravy each and ask for the receipt. Then we would stand off to the side while those of us who had data plans would be filling out the survey simultaneously with different codes.

We would get around 5 boxes of popcorn chicken and then take the receipts from those free boxes and save them to input the next day. We were practically getting KFC chicken for free every day!” Saya Madison

27. I Bought 157 Packets Of KoolAid To Get Free Gas

“This was more grinding than exploitation, but it was fun.

The grocery store where I lived had a fuel card you could sign up for. If you bought certain items, you would get $.01 or $.02 off per gallon, sometimes more depending on the item or week.

One week, they run a promotion that every one of their store generics would get $.02 off per gallon, per item.

I walk by the powdered KoolAid packets and notice they sell a generic version of that, 10/$1. I do the math.

My vehicle has a 16.5-gallon tank. Gas costs $3.14 per gallon. Each packet of drink mix costs .10. Every packet of drink mix I buy will save me .33 at the pump. I will need 157 packets of drink mix to get free gas. This will save me $36.11.
I should do this.

So, I count out 157 little individual packets of drink mix, all kinds of flavors, and go to the checkout. I try to save the guy some time by telling him how many there are in each flavor, but the manager had walked by and stopped to see what was going on with the generic KoolAid.

So, the poor guy has to scan every single one. The manager makes an awkward joke about the amount of drink mix I’m buying, but when I pull out my fuel card, my ploy becomes clear. The cashier reads off my new fuel discount and I’m on my way to the gas station, where I proudly fuel up my vehicle. (I still had to pay $0.16, they wouldn’t let you reduce the price all the way to zero.)

Then, I took all the generic drink mix and donated it to the local food pantry, because I hate KoolAid.” heebichibi

26. He Insured His Mail, So The Soviet Government Paid Him For Tampering With It

Smart move!

“One that is no longer in use, but I heard about it a long time ago and thought it was genius.

During the 1970s, a Bulgarian human rights dissident was expelled from his home country to West Germany. He figured out his own private way to get back at Soviet Communism.

Once a month, he chose a dissident imprisoned in the Soviet Union and wrote him a personal letter. But before mailing it, he would take it to the post office and have it insured against it being opened or tampered with.
The Soviet government, naturally, would intercept the letter, open it and photocopy the contents. But because the letter was insured, they would have to pay the insurance award. If they didn’t, they would be kicked out of the International Postal Union.

The IPU let the Bulgarian dissident do this to a maximum of one time a month, so as to not abuse the insurance system.

So, for years, this man would write a letter of support to an imprisoned human rights activist in the USSR. And one month later, he would receive a cheque from the USSR for a total of $400.” CMOS222

25. I Ripped Off Uber For $6,000 While I Was Driving For Lyft

“I am a cab driver. [throwaway]

Last year, my company cut their rates, and it hurt really bad. What was once a decent job became one where I was making below minimum wage if I were lucky.

I wanted revenge. So, I used a little hack to collect money from them…

There was no way to request yourself as a driver (without getting caught), but it was easy to use another phone with another profile to request yourself. Since Uber had so many drivers and so few employees to monitor shenanigans, I figured I would fly under the radar.

So, I created a fake passenger account and would request myself to meet their hourly fare guarantees. Uber always runs these ‘guarantees’ after price cuts to get drivers used to driving for less money. Since the app saw that I was logged in for the hours, I would get paid Uber’s guarantees while I went out and did Lyft rides because **** the company I work for.

At the end of it, I ripped Uber off for about $6,000 and quit. I can tell people that Uber literally paid me to go drive for Lyft. It felt so good to get my revenge from a company that had done everything in its power to completely ruin the lives of its drivers. Every driver I knew was suffering after the cuts. Fast forward one year, and they cut their rates once again. I don’t know how they survive. Please tip your driver; they can’t admit that they are suffering because it leads to low ratings. I assure you they are.” UBERFOCKER

24. Blockbuster Had A Flaw In Their System That Made Me About $1,000

Rumor has it that this is the reason Blockbuster went out of business…(Kidding!)

“I found a major flaw in the POS at Blockbuster.

Their system would update overnight, but only certain parts and these parts were on different days of the week. Their new item prices would update on Thursday, their used prices would update on Friday-BUT their trade-in values would update after closing on Sunday.

This meant if a game dropped in MSRP, its new version would first lower on Thursday morning ($49.99 to $19.99) and be cheaper than the used version. The next day, on Friday morning, it’s used version would be lowered ($47.99 to $17.99).
The trade-in value would still be the same-usually $30-$35, even though you could pull the game off the rack, buy it for $20, then trade in back without leaving the line.

I did this a few times and felt bad, so I emailed corporate to let them know about the loophole. They told me they didn’t take in information/suggestions from outside parties, essentially because they had that set up as part of their ‘business strategy.’

I then proceeded to assist them in their endeavors by buying 25+ copies of Beowulf from Best Buy for $9.99 ($19.99-$10 coupon) and trading them in for ~$800 in-store credit.
Then I repurchased all 25 copies with the store credit for ~$500.

Then I traded them in again.

Then I bought them again.

I did this a few times over the weekend and ended up with $1200 in-store credit from $250 cash.

Then I found a few games GameStop gave good money for and traded them in over there for store credit. I made some preordered and eventually canceled them and requested cashback for the deposit.

I eventually got a letter from Blockbuster banning me from trading, but it had the wrong date (post-dated for the next year), and I kept trading.

I don’t feel bad about it.” 450freeway

23. I Used A Change Machine To Turn Nickels Into $5 Worth Of Quarters

“Back when I was about 12 years old I went to an amusement park called Santa’s Village in East Dundee, IL. My family and I would go there quite often and especially for Mother’s Day.

Not just my immediate family but cousins, aunts, uncles, my grandmother, etc.

At this amusement park, they have everything here just like any other park. Roller coasters, snow-cones, kiddie rides, funnel cakes, and of course…ARCADES!

I loved playing at the arcades. Nobody batted an eye what game you played. Our parents gave us money and change so we could play with what we had. My cousin, brother, and I took a walk so we could play Killer Instinct or Mortal Kombat. Nobody telling kids they can’t play those games because of gore, *****, violence, *********, etc. We just wanted to see who can beat who, or to play solo and try and beat the game.

You need money for the arcades back in this time and not swipe cards or tokens. So as we were playing, I ran out of quarters. All I had left were nickels and dimes. I went to the change machine so I can exchange two dimes and a nickel for a quarter. For some reason, it didn’t take it. I put in a dime and it came back out the return slot. I put it in again and the same thing happened. I then hit the return button and then put in the dime once again (while keeping the button pressed) and out came my dime for the third time.

I put it in once more and it took it.

I then put in a nickel. Out it came. I did the exact same thing as I did with the dime except something happened when I put it in the fourth and final time (after putting the coin in while pressing the coin return button). The nickel stayed in the machine, but…..
Out came $5 in quarters!

My brother and cousin thought I put in a $5 bill. An employee was walking by when the coins were coming out and I honestly didn’t know if the machine was ever going to stop spitting out coins.

I started getting nervous, but alas, it stopped at $5.

I was now intrigued by my new found ‘hack’ or ‘loophole’ with the change machine. I used another nickel to try it out again and out came another $5 in quarters. My brother and cousin didn’t know until I told them. We played at the arcade half the day until we ran out of money and went back to our parents for more nickels. Eventually, the day was over, and we went home. The next time we went back to Santa’s Village, they had the coin slot locked down. I couldn’t help but chuckle and feel that it was because of me, but then kind of felt bad that they had to resort to something like that because of me.

Eventually, Santa’s Village closed down and reopened many years later as an ‘azoosement’ park as well as one side of the park becoming a world-famous paintball park known for the Call of Duty Nuketown map.” Lino Barraza

22. I Kept Earning Prizes At School For Performing The Same Selfless Behavior, Daily

Reward systems must be well thought through before they’re implemented, or else, this happens…

“When I was in THE first grade, like many other classrooms, we had one of those behavior charts with colored cards.

[Red-Bad Behavior; Yellow-Medium Behavior; Green-Great Behavior]

However, we had an extra color that none of the other classes had. If we did something selfless, we’d get put on purple, and we’d get to pick out a prize from the prize box!
In my elementary school, we had to wash the tables after we ate lunch.

No one else ever wanted to wash them, so that resulted in me always washing them by myself. If the lunch ladies noticed that I washed the table by myself, I got to hold the little plastic medal that each class had when they had good behavior at lunch. If you know children, you’ll know that they love to hold shiny things, so after every lunch, I would get a bunch of my classmates begging to hold the medal, and usually, I would let them, because getting to hold it every single day kind of wears off on some of the specialness of it.

On one fateful Monday, my teacher noticed that I let one of the classmates hold it, and she was so happy to see me be selfless that she put me on purple, and I got to choose a prize!
Naturally, I realized that whenever this happened, I would be put on purple, so I did it every day.

My teacher caught on pretty quickly. Every day, I get the medal, give it to a different classmate, and that classmate would go up to her teacher and say, ‘Sherrie gave me the medal! She’s so nice!’ causing her to feel obligated to put me on purple for such a selfless act. After about a week or so of getting prizes every day, my teacher announced to the whole class that whoever got the medal can’t give it to someone else, ending my streak of everyday prizes, but it didn’t take long for me to fixate on a different scheme” Sherrie Gies

21. I Messed With The McDonald’s App To Get Free Burgers

“Years ago, McDonald’s had an app that you could install on your phone.

When you installed the app, you got a free burger (one of the nicer ones with bacon, if I remember). I’m a programmer, and I’m used to debugging and testing code, so I wondered what would happen if I cleared the data for the app and tried it again. Nope, didn’t work; however, if I cleared the data, uninstalled the app, then reinstalled, it seemed to think it was a new phone, and I got another free burger.
I don’t go to McDonald’s much, but I did this 3-4 times over several months; it was pretty nice. Eventually, they must have figured this out because it stopped working with one of their updates.

Again though, me being a programmer, I wondered how they were doing it. I figured out they were using the internal phone ID as a key. Well, again, I’m a programmer, so I had my phone wide open so I could play with a lot of internal stuff. If I cleared the data, uninstalled the app, changed my phone ID, then reinstalled the app, it would work again. I only did this a couple of times to see if it would work.
They changed it again, so you had to use your email address to log in, but with Gmail, you can add periods anywhere in your email address, so just to try it, I registered with different periods in my name and used the technique above.

I could have milked it for much more, but over a year or so, I got 7-8 free burgers. I didn’t do more because I don’t care for McDonald’s that much, and I felt that it went against the spirit of the thing; it was more to see if I could do it.” Garrett OBrien

20. We Got Free Chicken Sandwiches Because The Inventory Wasn’t Based On Number

This is a dishonest but clever example of how math can come in handy.

“When my kids were in HS marching band, one of the fundraisers we did involved working the concession stand at OSU. The company that had the concessions contract would staff them with people raising money for various organizations, usually kids’ activities like marching bands, dance troops, sports teams, etc.

The process of working the stand involved counting all the stock at the beginning of the shift and counting what remained at the end. The difference should match with your sales.

Different items were counted differently, which created the loopholes.
Drinks were counted by counting the cups, which meant if you brought our own cup you could drink as much fountain soda as you wanted without consequence.

The best, though, was the sandwiches. The burgers and chicken sandwiches used different buns. The chicken breasts were not uniform in size, of course, which means you couldn’t count them, each box could have a different number of breasts, so you counted the chicken buns.

Because the burgers were uniform and each box had the same number of frozen patties, you counted them. That meant that a chicken breast served on a hamburger bun was untraceable, and we could eat as many as we wanted.

Here’s the interesting thing, this was pointed out not by one of the workers, but by the supervisor who worked for the concessions company. She had obviously been taking advantage of this for a long time.” Doug Schaefer

19. We Rebelled Against Our School Dress Code. Technically, We Still Complied…

Rebellion at its finest! This is actually pretty ingenious.

“There was a loophole in our school dress code.

It said: ‘Skirts and shorts must come to at least the student’s mid-thigh.’ It also said that ‘Sagging pants that expose the undergarments are prohibited. A belt is required for all pants with belt loops with the shirt tucked in.’

So, one day, twenty boys showed up in kilts and skirts with no pants under. They were all dress code-length, so the administration couldn’t say anything. The same day, the girls wore tight pants with no belt loops…with obnoxious boxers OVER them. Technically, we were all in dress code.

We did this at least ten times over the course of the year when this new dress code was first implemented.

It was fixed the next year to read that ‘No clothing that is classified as undergarments may be visible at any time.’ They tried to change the rules so only girls could wear skirts, but the principal informed them that this was a violation of civil rights laws. So, the boys abused this loophole ’till graduation.” AngelStyx

18. I Bypassed Security On My School’s Computer, So I Could Do What I Wanted

“I had a computer class in 8th grade, basically how to photoshop and vector and such, nothing too complicated. Most of the people in said class had some real difficulty with it.

I did not. So I completed my assignments within the 90 minutes we had, and then derped around for the following 90 minutes each week until it was due. Sometimes I just browsed them interwebs, sometimes I walked around helping other students, basically, the teacher was cool with it since I helped others and had my stuff done.
The computers were somewhat locked down, you couldn’t access C: or use the task manager, or download .exe .zip or .rar files, such things. I could, however, edit shortcuts. So the shortcut to the Designer thing-the vectoring program-was suddenly changed to C:Program FilesDesigner instead of C:Program FilesDesignerdesigner.exe and I could open the folder.

I installed Process Explorer (alternate task manager to replace the one that was blocked) on the machine I always used, and it just started from there. This was really some years ago, so I ended up installing some instant messenger too, back when Skype wasn’t a thing yet, and chatting was still cool.
And then, one day, I was browsing some innocent things in class, had already done my work…and my tab closed. ‘Huh,’ I thought, ‘That’s odd.’ I reopened it and kept browsing. A few seconds later, it closed again. I noticed the mouse zip there this time. Oh, that’s how you want to play it? I went to Designer and started to draw some random things, looking like I was working for a few minutes.

And then when I was off the hook, I figured out which program they used to remotely watch my screen, used my fake Designer shortcut to find it, used Process Explorer to force quit it, and then just deleted it off the HDD. The admin never again accessed my PC, just seeing it as offline I’d expect.

It’s a bit of a legitimate loophole since I wasn’t doing anything bad, but someone thought I should be working when I had nothing to do, and I stopped him from checking.

…and then a few months later we all played Warcraft 3 on the networked school machines because it was pretty easy to bypass their security.

I learned how to beat tower defense maps in school, who else can say that about their education?” SavvySillybug

17. My Radio Station Gave Prizes For Identifying Backward Songs. We Reversed Them…

With technology nowadays, you can’t really host contests like this anymore!

“A local small-town radio station ran a Christmas contest where they would play a Christmas song backward. They would usually pick some modern version of a classic song to make it tougher to identify. A few co-workers and I listened to the radio all day and were familiar with the contest. The first couple songs were so hard that they had to replay them hourly throughout the day, sometimes not getting a winning caller until the evening.

These were the days of Windows 95, which came with a simple sound recorder program. The program could record from the mic and had all of about one feature…reverse playback! We taped a PC microphone to a clock radio. We had one person responsible to record, reverse, and identify the song. He would email the rest of us and we would identify a daily winner who would call in and ‘win,’ in advance.

The contest ran for 2 weeks. To avoid being caught, we would skip the days when the prizes were less enticing. Four of us each took home 2 great prizes.

I won a Back to the Future DVD box set and a $100 gift card to the local skate shop. I used my girlfriend’s name when I won the second time and had her claim the prize.” seabass233

16. I Smashed Nickels Into Quarters To Play More Games At The Arcade

“As a teenager, I figured out you could take a hammer and smash a nickel into the size of a quarter. I would go to the video store and ask for a roll of nickels (not sure why they gave them to me). Once I had said nickels I went behind the bowling alley across the street from the video store and sm*****ashe*d the* *** out of them.

After doing the dirty work, I would take them in and play Street Fighter 2 for hours.

A few years later I worked at an arcade and actually had the keys to add as many credits as I like. I also found out when I work at the arcade, the owner had been looking for the ***** who put the slugs into his machines.” groovemerchant

15. We Scanned Our Cans In The Recycling Machine And Pulled Them Back Out…

“When my friends and I were in 6th grade, we were always looking for a hustle. We would collect our parents’ empty soda and beer cans to return them to the Safeway near us for a few bucks to buy candy.

One day, they installed these big machines that automated the process, so the employees didn’t have to manually count the cans. You would put your can in the machine through a wide tube, it would roll the can around until it read the bar code, drop the can into a locked storage bin inside, and you would repeat this until all of your cans were tallied. It would print a receipt that you would exchange for the cash amount of your cans at the register inside.

My friends and I tied a can to the end of a stick, got the machine to read the barcode and then pulled the stick out before the mechanism would force our can-on-a-stick into its belly.

We did this once a week and got about twenty bucks each time before we would get nervous and stop so we wouldn’t get caught.” Unknown Reddit user

14. We Got Into The Movies Free Every Day For Bringing My Mom In A Wheelchair

“My mom uses a wheelchair for distances, and when I was in middle school, we discovered that at our local movie theater, a person in a wheelchair and the person pushing them got into movies for free. They also had a deal at concessions for a large drink and large popcorn for some really cheap price with unlimited refills.

There were a few years where we went to the movies almost every week and would see 2 or 3 movies at a time. We saw virtually every movie released, just because we could. They eventually took the deal away; first, the person pushing had to pay, then the person in the chair, and now you even have to pay for refills. It was awesome while it lasted.” throwaway312469

13. We Dug Chuck E. Cheese’s Tickets Out Of Dumpsters To Redeem Prizes

“In the ’80s, Chuck E. Cheese’s didn’t shred the tickets you get out of their games and use to buy toys, candy, etc.

My friends and I were biking one day behind a strip mall practicing our wheelies and jumps. We saw a worker throwing a garbage bag of tickets into the dumpster behind Chuck E. Cheese. We grabbed it and then started circling back about once a week. Garbage bags and garbage bags full of tickets. We were doing so well, one of my friend’s parents got in on it. She would take the minivan behind there and have her kids load up. And this is why tickets are now shredded. I think I still have a huge stockpile of frisbees and stuffed animals in my parents’ attic somewhere.” bboy1977

12. I Got Hundreds Of Dollars In Print Credit By Requesting A Negative Value Of Copies

“Did a computer science degree.

Our computer labs printer payment system was written by students as a class project or something. We were ****** around one day and realized that if you requested a negative number of copies (e.g. -2 copies), the debit application would credit you 2 copies (10 cents per page), but the printer would absolute value it and print you 2 copies. So, we all got free printing and had accounts with $100’s of print credit. (Unfortunately, you couldn’t take it out as cash or anything.) We kept it pretty quiet for a couple of years but told others in our senior year, and it got shut down pretty quick after word spread.

Always do boundary checks, yo!” Deleted Reddit user

11. I Tested Out Of Math Forever After Taking The Test Eight Times

When you hate math, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do…

“This is the story of how I passed math and graduated from college. So, my university was notoriously awful for their math program. They used MyMathLab, and it was just generally ***. I was terrible at math anyway.

You had the option of testing out of classes. You would go to the testing center, pay five bucks and take a test. So, this was my plan to get my math credits. I’d go take the test, find out what I got stuck on and then work on that type of problem until I understood how to do it.

Then I’d go back, take the test again. So and so forth. I probably took the test like 8 times in a semester. Finally, I passed that ***** and got my math credit out of the way.

The next semester, a new rule was implemented that you could only try and test out of a class twice per semester.” EthanAllenHawley

10. We Bought Video Games And Made Money For Returning Them To Another Store

If you’ve ever wondered why receipts are typically required when you return an item at a store, this is one good reason why.

“Back in 2008, my girlfriend and I were living together and working retail jobs to make ends meet.

(This was when the recession was first getting started.) Gas was $3.50/g and the rent was high, and making ends meet was a continuous challenge.

I was working at Target at the time after having recently left another big retailer for the sake of my dignity and sanity. Target (at least back then and at my store) commonly marked down clearance video games to ridiculously low prices. For about six months, I would buy clearance games at Target for $5-$10 and return them to one of the local Wal-Marts (where video games were much less often clearanced out) for $30-40 in-store credit.

That went a long way towards keeping us fed during a very tough financial stretch. Getting to *** this retailers over a little in the process was just icing on the cupcake.” beard_meat

9. I Use My Mom’s Expired Dunkin Donuts Card To Get Free Coffee Whenever I Want

“There are these 3 Dunkin Donuts in my area that let you buy ‘Coffee Cards.’ Basically, you pay $200 for the card and can come through any part of the day, however much you want a day, and get any size coffee for a year. Well, my mom bought one last year, and it had expired; she bought another one this year, and it looks EXACTLY THE SAME as the old one.

They took no effort into changing the card at all, so my mom gave me her old one and I get free coffee whenever I want.

They’re not scannable cards or gift cards. It’s literally just a pink piece of paper in the shape of a card that has the Dunkin Donuts label on it, the locations where it’s valid, and a manager’s signature. It does have the date it ‘expires’ on there real small, but they have never once checked my card; they only ask me to ‘flash’ it at them, so I guess the day they ask to inspect it, the jig is up.” occhiolism

8. I Got Free Shuttle Rides For A Year With Photoshopped Punch Cards

Well, technically, this loophole wasn’t completely unreasonable considering there was an initial promise that was made…

“When I was in grad school, I moved into an apartment complex that had promised me free shuttle rides to the nearby train station.

It was a big factor in deciding whether to move there because I didn’t own a car.

Well, a couple of months after I moved in, they started charging for the bus rides. They had these punch cards-$10 for 10 punches. The problem was that these punch cards had no security features in them. They were just cards made out of colored cardstock.
So, I used Photoshop to mimic the cards as best as I could and had several sheets printed at a local print shop. I carefully cut them out and started using them. I had to be careful that I didn’t let the bus driver punch the 10th slot because then he would take the used-up card.

I didn’t want those cards to be returned to the office and have them notice a discrepancy that the driver wouldn’t.

I did this for about a year before I moved out.” lord_nimon

7. My Troops Were Required To Take Medication. I Literally Had Them “Take” It…

“During the Gulf War, we had these pills that we were supposed to take that would supposedly protect us from nerve gas. As an NCO, I was required to have all of my troops take the medication. The medication was even labeled ‘Not fit for human consumption.’ So, I would put a pill in my hand, hold it out, and then tell someone take it.

They would take it from me. Then later when the officers asked me, ‘Did everyone in your unit take the pill?’ I would answer. ‘Yes.’ Our orders were that everyone has to take one pill a day; our orders were not that anyone had to consume the pill. If I was asked, however, if they consumed the pill, I would have had to have honestly answered no. I think my commanders knew what I was doing, and that I was living up to the letter of the orders, if not the spirit. All the pills ever did was make people sick; no one wanted to consume it.” linuxrebel

6. I Got A Bunch Of Stuff For Almost Free With A Target Online Coupon

“About 4 years ago, Target released an online coupon for $5 off your online order, no minimum purchase.

If you used your Target card, you always got free shipping. A ton of their baby and toddler clothes were clearanced for $5, so I spent most of my day ordering my son new clothes. I would do separate transactions for every item, used the coupon code, and my Target card for the free shipping-so my balance was either $0 or a few cents. I seriously thought they would cancel all my orders, but they didn’t. I was able to get my kid new clothes for next to nothing. About a week later, all the packages started arriving; it was like Christmas.” Kawibear

5. I Hated Reading, So I Wrote Book Reports On Fake Books And My Teacher Never Noticed

“Back in my days, the internet wasn’t invented yet.

Using Google to check for plagiarism didn’t exist. The times were much simpler then and penny candy still cost a penny.

In high school, I had an English teacher who apparently lost his desire to teach. He apathetically sat at his desk all semester long while we silently read books. There wasn’t a book list. Any book was a qualifiable contender to a potentially great grade. All we had to do was write a book report to prove we read the book. The more book reports we wrote, the better our grade.
I wasn’t an avid reader so I started writing imaginary book reports to books that didn’t exist.

My first book was called The Log Cabin by J.C. Frieling: A 19th-century true-life adventure of a mountain man named Ben Buchanan. He lost everything-wealth, family, and the desire to live. It wasn’t until he moved to the wilderness that his life started changing for the better. He built a log cabin and became aware of who he really was and what he was about to become.

My teacher liked my writing and gave me a ‘B.’ He later praised me on the number of books I read and how I was the top reader in his class. I even noticed he took a stronger interest in his students.

Perhaps I was his log cabin.” spleefmaboff

4. I Got A Ton Of Free Prizes At School For Taking The Same Test Online

“In elementary school, we had the Accelerated Reading (AR) program. You would read a book, take a test on the computer, and be awarded points based on how well you did. At the end of the year, you could buy things at the book store with the points you accumulated.

I had just finished reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and got a perfect score on the test. The computer was only supposed to allow you to take the test once, but I figured out you could take that specific Harry Potter book unlimited times.

I racked up so many points and was never found out.” saucecat2

3. We got 300 boxes of cereal for just $12 thanks to self-checkout

But hey, at least Kroger got to cut back on costs by eliminating some of their cashiers when they got self-checkout…

“Back in college, we found a loophole with coupons at Kroger for General Mills cereal. If you bought 4 boxes of cereal, each box was a dollar. But if you did the self-checkout, you would be printed out a coupon for $4 off your next purchase. We used the loophole to buy about 300 boxes of cereal. We only spent $12 on all of it.

We would’ve spent less, but we had to go to another Kroger once the manager got wind of us. We kept around 20 boxes for ourselves and donated the rest to the local food bank. They were so excited when we showed up with three vehicles full of cereal. Totally worth the $12 and all the time it took.” RoiVampire

2. I found out how to bypass ads on Hulu

“I discovered this little trick about a year ago while watching a program on Hulu iPad app. One of the most annoying things is the commercials, right?! And back then, there wasn’t even the option for commercial-free subscription as I believe they’re now offering ON TOP of the regular subscription cost.

(I think you need the basic sub to be able to watch on the app.)

Anyway, I figured out one day that if I tapped the AirPlay button when the commercial came on, it would sort of pause for a sec then continue with the show, skipping all the ads!!!! NO MORE COMMERCIALS!!! I’ve since canceled my sub and deleted the app from my tablet, so I’m not sure if this trick still works, but when I found this little glitch, I felt so powerful.” riccioli

1. I got free music if I agreed to buy more. I said I was a minor…

We usually dread when we are told we can’t do something because we’re a minor.

However, in this case, being a minor would actually be a good thing!

“When I was in high school and under 18, I used to sign up for those old Columbia House cassette and cd deals where you get like 10 for free and agree to purchase a few at a regular price later. There were three or four companies that did this. I routinely signed up for these companies and got a ton of music for free. When I never ordered the full price, very overpriced music, they would send me a letter which I would then reply to indicating I was a minor and my parents had no idea I was doing this.

I reminded them that as a minor the contract was not binding on me and they should go punch a wall. I did this at least 7 or 8 times. Bonus: I’m now a lawyer. Nailed. it.” lessworkiskey
Although taking advantage of loopholes is usually a dishonest and unnecessary thing to do, the previous stories of people exploiting loopholes certainly give us ah-ha moments. Of course, the guilty consciouses of some of the folks in the latter stories also remind us that some loopholes just aren’t worth abusing. But since we are on the topic, have you ever taken advantage of a flaw or inconsistency of a system?