Loopholes are the best. You’re not technically doing anything against the rules, but it feels like you’re getting away with something. That’s because, well, you basically are! It’s not your fault someone didn’t dot their I’s and cross their T’s, right?
Redditor Ninjalord5 over at “Ask Reddit” must feel the same way since he asked people to share the loopholes they discovered and proceeded to exploit with impunity.
Unfortunately, many of these loopholes are no longer applicable or useful to everyone, but they are still entertaining as hell to read about nonetheless.
Check ’em out…
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
I worked in a call center during college. Our main performance measure was the number of donations solicited PER CONTACT. If the person didn’t answer or hung up immediately, it didn’t count against you.
I discovered a bug where, if I blew into the microphone just as the phone started to ring, it would register in the computer system as a no-answer and dial the next number. I rode this out for several months before I got tired of blowing my microphone for 8 hours a day and quit. ~ smokebreak
Bought a shitty Sega Genesis game, I think it was some flight sim which was the crappiest game I ever played. So I took it back to K-mart and got told “No refunds for opened games. Replacement for the same one if broken.” Annoyed that I couldn’t get my money back I said it was broken and went for the replacement. They handed me a new copy of the game and my original receipt.
Left and came back an hour later, “I want a refund for this game, here is my receipt and unopened game.” Got my money back, went and bought a different shit Genesis game. ~ FOTBWN
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
Last summer, I went up to Northern Michigan with a buddy of mine. He’s got a nice summer cabin in a small town called Oscoda. It’s a nice little place, with beautiful lake beaches and other fun outdoorsy stuff if that’s your thing, but there’s not an awful lot to do up there otherwise. We walked from his cabin into the town, and walked into a closing K-Mart. I walked over to the electronics aisle, hoping to find some bargains on video games. Unfortunately, they only had one shitty game: Putty Squad for PS4, and they had an awful lot of copies. I checked the price. They were on clearance for $14, but were marked at an additional 90% off, bringing the price down to a measly $1.40 each.
I did the sensible thing that anyone else would’ve done and bought 20 copies, even though I had no interest in ever playing any of them nor did I own a PS4. Receipt for proof. After a weird look from the cashier, he removed the security labels from the games and sent me on my merry way with a bag full of sealed games I spent under $30 for.
I brought them home with me, and traded them into GameStop one by one every time I went, getting approximately $7 per copy in store credit. I traded in such a high volume of copies, I was banned from trading in games to GameStop! Fortunately, it’s a system-issued temporary ban to prevent people from loading off stolen goods. I just traded in my last copy last weekend when they were doing a 50% bonus trade-in credit promotion, and got $10 in-store credit. I made something like $150 in store credit total off of $28 plus tax, and even though this pales in comparison to some of the other posts in this thread, I consider this a victory and it makes for a funny story to tell. ~ Digimon_Shiny
At my local movie theater, you could get a small drink for $2.50 or a large drink for $3.50, and large gets unlimited refills. Or you could get a SoBe tea for $2.50. But they didn’t give you the SoBe bottle because they wanted to avoid any broken glass incidents. So they poured the SoBe into the large cup. Boom: unlimited large drink refills.
I saved several dollars that way. ~ r2d2sthirdleg
My college didn’t put any dates on our Student IDs. No graduation year, no expiration date, nothing. As a result, I kept using it to get student discounts for YEARS after I graduated, mostly the 15% off J. Crew discount. ~ hummingbird4289
Was in a trivia bowl type competition in college. As soon as the announcer began asking the question you could buzz in and answer. If you got the question wrong you lost no points and the question was skipped. My team answered the first question correctly and proceed to mash the buzzer for the rest of the round, effectively blocking out all the other questions. We won the round with a final score of 1pt.
They changed the rules before the next round. 🙂 ~ jdrama418
Around 5 years ago I used to work as a Sales Rep at a cell phone booth. Every new smartphone that would be released, the wireless provider would usually send us a demo unit of that phone with a demo line. The demo line would have unlimited talk, text, and data but would deactivate after 2-3 months. This was so we could show customers how the phone works with all of its features.
One time we got a demo line that didn’t expire after the 2-3 months. So my manager at the time told me to use it as my work line. I didn’t want to carry two cell phones so I cancelled my personal line and used my work line as my personal too. Fast forward one year later, my manager is transferred to another store and we get a new manager. New manager has no idea about my work/personal line. I left the company 6 months later with my demo line and to this day I still use this demo line. Have not had a cell phone bill for over 5 years and counting. ~ akfilmmaker
Kroger had a sale probably six or seven years back where they would give you $10 gift card if you bought 10 Amp energy drinks. At the same time, though, they had a Brickyard 400 promo where every drink was $1. I legit bought about 200+ for $0.06 each (the tax) and sold them at my school for $1 a piece. One of my teachers found out about it and instead of turning me in, she bragged about it to her classes. ~ droans
Back when Hollywood Video was around, they would guarantee new releases to be in stock. If they rented out all of their copies in the store then they would give you a voucher for a free rental.
I was in college at the time and would go into the store near my college campus at around 10pm on a Friday night. There was simply no way for them to have any copies left by that time, so I would collect whichever vouchers were available. Rinse, repeat. Cheaper than Redbox. ~ Ragina_Falange
There was a Papa Johns coupon for 50% off if the official PJ twitter retweeted you.
I found the code looking through their website.
I got half off pizza for a year and a half. ~ Calyxo
Worked at Wal-Mart. Employees can’t take advantage of mismatched prices. See 3DSXL labeled at $70, when they first came out. Friend is with me. Hand him money to pay for it. Get new 3DSXL for $70. ~ Bonemonster
I worked at sandwich shop when I was a young lass. We were allowed one free sandwich for the entirety of our employment there.
Being an endless pit of hunger 16 year olds are, I was determined to get as many free sandwiches as possible.
If someone called in a phone order and never picked it up, the sandwich was fair game for employees after an hour. So I would text my friends to call in the sandwich I wanted and then never pick it up.
Everyday I got free sandwiches. It was amazing. If I didn’t eat it, I would bring it to school the next day and sell it. ~ ___Little_Bear___
I had a professor in college who would give partial credit on multiple choice questions. It wasn’t something like, show your work and get partial credit, it was circle the correct answer and cross out the wrong answers. For a question with 4 answers, each wrong answer crossed out was worth 25%. I didn’t try it because they were pretty easy tests anyway, but one of my friends tried just crossing out every answer. He got 75% for crossing out all of the wrong answers correctly. ~ Spe1025
So I wanted to get cheap coffee filters online as I knew i was going to need them for the foreseeable future and wanted to get a better price on them. So I found a site that had them at half price ($1.95 for 100 filters, usually $3.99 at the store) what I was paying at the store and put them in my cart. When I went to check out it asked me if I wanted to setup an automatic delivery to have them shipped every 2 weeks and they would reduce the price. I said sure why not, after all they were the cheapest I had found and getting them every week would mean I didn’t have to keep ordering them.
So it brought the price down by like to like $1 for 100 filters. I was thrilled. Then it asked me if i wanted to join the Coffee savers program for more discounts! I said sure! So after joining the savers program it brought the price down to $0.00. I was stunned. I still had to add my credit card but I was never charged. So for 2 years I got 100 filters delivered to my door for free. Never got charged NOT ONCE.
One day though I got a notice that said they were going out of business and my free filters would end. I was sad. But the stock pile I amassed them lasted me about 2 years and recently in the past 2 weeks I had to buy new filters. Life will never be the same. ~ maramok
Check out the rest of the loopholes, and there are many, over at Reddit.
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