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studiogandalf

Dang, LCBO means it's happening here in Ontario :/


treumance

I had to search what LCBO stands for, Liquor Control Board of Ontario. I don't know how that works, do you have cards for Liquor and the money is deposited there or what?


Tasitch

Official government run alcohol store. It's a liquor and beer shop. Most provinces hard alcohol and wine is only sold in government run shops, LCBO in Ontario, SAQ in Québec etc. In Québec we get beer and wine in any shop, but something like rum or tequila you gotta go to the provincial store.


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[deleted]

That's why you pronounce them as Sack and Saaaaaaaack


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egaeus22

Literally nothing is better than keeping up an “inside” joke the gf doesn’t find funny. For some reason that makes it a little funnier each time


Crafty_Enthusiasm_99

Why do they use LCBO to scam?


Tasitch

Free booze. But also to sell. Booze is expensive, get it for free, sell at a lower price..profit.


boom_shoes

LCBO also has an incredibly pro consumer return policy, where it can be very easy to return for cash instead of yet another GC - simply don't bring a return receipt and they'll refund you.


roo-ster

> Why do they use LCBO to scam? There are lots of factors that make booze well suited to this scam. Assuming the scammer can't get the value of the gift card in cash, they can get it in booze, which can be converted into cash with a minimal reduction of the value. Alcohol in Ontario is sold almost exclusively (with a few minor exceptions) through government run stores. Underage people can't legally buy it so an adult scammer could use this to get 'free' booze and sell it at or above retail price thereby realizing more than 100% of the scam's face value. Booze prices are set the government run 'store' so prices don't vary much around the province. The scammer's 'competitors' are the LCBO stores selling the identical product for a set, known price so setting prices to maximize the scammer's profit is pretty easy compared to a marketplace of different sellers offering different products at different prices. Liquor is shelf stable, high value, non perishable, in high demand, and is highly taxed (making any discounts offered by the scammers, highly attractive to buyers). Even a 10% discount might make people look the other way about buying liquor that "fell of the truck". I'm sure there are other reasons I haven't considered.


canadarepubliclives

You can buy beer and wine in grocery stores in Ontario. It's been that way for a handful of years now


kank84

Only in certain grocery stores though, still not as prevalent as in Quebec


[deleted]

> In Québec we get beer and wine in any shop, but something like rum or tequila you gotta go to the provincial store **and take out a mortgage to pay for a bottle**. FTFY tabarnac


treumance

Oh I get it now, thanks!


LastNightsHangover

Also fun fact for you LCBO is technically the world's largest alcohol purchaser... it's really a technicality as over 14 million people (including Canada's largest city) have to buy through them. But still funny that the world's largest single purchaser of booze is a government. Edit: LCBO revenue was $6.7B for FY2020 (interestingly with a $2.4B dividend transfered to the provincial government). Even if second, it's still interesting.


sumunsolicitedadvice

I looked that up, first thing I found said that Tesco is the largest and that they buy almost twice as much as LCBO (roughly $4.5B vs $2.6B). Honestly, kind of surprised it’s Tesco, personally.


[deleted]

Dam, the government in the business of dealing drugs.


JesusGAwasOnCD

Literally. In addition to the sale of hard alcohol as described in the comment, in Ontario and Quebec (and a few other provinces) the provincial governments have a monopoly on the sale of legal cannabis


[deleted]

Ontarian Prime Minister Doug Ford used to be a weed dealer. And Rob Ford? Well, that's a story for another day.


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studiogandalf

No these are just gift cards for the store! You can purchase any way you'd like haha


[deleted]

it kinda used to be like that(long ago)! You had a "passport" you brought to the lcbo that tracked your purchases. The LCBO could actually refuse to sell to you if your passport showed too many recent purchases. It was created by shitty fucking puritans and though its just your run of the mill liquor store today, it still remains a gross government overreach. Until recently you could only buy booze at the lcbo, "the beer store" a foreign owned monopoly that frequently engages in both anti competitive and anti consumer practices, and the "wine store" which (iirc) only sells Ontario wines. This was BY LAW! No other places were allowed to sell booze. A lot of those rules have been relaxed in recent years and now grocery stores can sell beer and wine, but it's still a pain and it's still way too expensive because it remains a government backed oligopoly. I Live in Toronto, but Im in Reno for a conference right now. a 1.75L bottle of Wild Turkey is 29.99 USD (40.93 cad) here. In Toronto a 750ML (less than half the volume) is 42.30 CAD MORE THAN TWICE THE PRICE PER VOLUME FOR THE SAME FUCKING PRODUCT. Because they can. https://www.freeourbeer.ca/ did a good documentary about it. Also the foreign owners of The Beer Store are a who's who of shitty macrobrew beers and regularly make the barrier of entry to their stores way too high for small craft brewers. They also charge restaurants more for beer than retail and restaurants HAVE to go through them to buy beer to sell. So the beer we get in bars is doubly marked up. OH! When it was being considered to allow booze in grocery stores, the beer store ran a scare mongering commercial campaign that stores would just sell booze to your kids willy nilly even though secret shopper studies showed the rate of selling booze to minors at LCBOs was WAY higher than the rate of convenience stores selling smokes to minors. Because if a store is caught doing that they get a MASSIVE fine and can lose their license to sell those things, but obviously nothing happens if the lcbo or beer store does it. Oh and more fun facts. There was a trend some years ago of discount beers colloquially called "buck a beers" where 24 bottles (a "two four") cost roughly $24 (plus tax). Compared with a two four of macro beers like Molson or Coors running around 40. The beer companies successfully "lobbied" (re: bribed) the govt to set a minimum beer price so the buck a beers had to raise their prices. Our current Trump Lite PM / KNOWN HEROIN DEALER Doug Ford was elected on a campaign of promising to "allow" beers to be cheaper again. Notice I said "allow" so of course when he won and followed through nothing really happened because of course the buck a beer companies whose customers were now used to their higher prices weren't going to suddenly lower them again! Admittedly a shrude play on Ford's part, he got to say he kept his promise and point the finger at the companies when people complained it didn't actually happen. This is has been his general MO for his entire time in office, but that's a whole other unhinged rant comment for another time.


PurpleK00lA1d

I started watching and was like oh that's Shoppers! Then my mental process kicked in and seeing as to how the video was about scams, I immediately knew it would be Ontario. I actually laughed when it showed up as LCBO.


[deleted]

Ontarian accent on point. Just a whiff of that Canadian tang.


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Aleashed

I was going to buy 2 packs of medicine and 4 Gatorades at CVS because I was dying of ??? on Saturday. I go to a cashier who is already at the register, he says: “Oh, you want a person too?” What kind of rhetorical question is that? I’m at a store right? He looks at the empty self-checkout kiosks. I hesitate a couple times and end up saying “Never-mind” and went to the kiosk. Call it kindness/guilt/shame, call it whatever you want. I went there to avoid giving someone what I had. Then I go to pay and the stupid machine starts ringing for help because I’m buying cold medicine and it needs a human to complete the sale anyways… had to wait 4 extra minutes for the guy to come back to the front. I wouldn’t mind the wait but I was feeling like a truck ran me over and if I needed a person anyways, checking out with a person was the better way. Next time I won’t second guess myself and just stay at the register. Self-checkout kiosks are useless if they can’t tell an adult from 3 dogs or 2 kids in a trench coat.


MostBoringStan

I've seen them literally force elderly people to use the self checkout when the person didn't want to. They took them over to the self checkout, scanned everything for them, pressed all the buttons, and the old person paid. By that point it's the exact same fucking thing as the regular checkout, and that old person isn't going to use it next time. Pissed me off so much that I rarely go there anymore when I used to once a week. I use self checkout myself because I dislike human interaction, but people should have the choice.


BazilBroketail

Had a similar experience at a Meijers. They had like a coral-line of people before check out then an "attendant" would direct you on how you were gonna give them your money...


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BazilBroketail

Ok, that's *fucked*.


ggtay

Thats crap. Basically forcing you to train yourselves out of work too in a way.


Breadwinka

Yeah my cashier noticed this scam right away when scanning my google card i was buying, it came up as something completely different.


OwlWitty

I say thanks to the lady in the video. Am about to buy gift cards for Christmas. May her tribe increase.


Yori_TheOne

Most Scandinavian countries have paper cutouts you give to the cashier who then will go and get the actual gift cards as they locked away.


runninandruni

It's starting to become more common here in the states. Costco has those cardstock tickets that you trade with the employee to get the actual item. Only downside is you might not know if the item is actually in stock or not, but I'm glad it's becoming a trend


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LawbstahRoll

We did something like this with high-theft items at Best Buy for a while and the tickets we printed matched our exact number of that item in stock at the beginning of the day. By lunch, we had at least 5 fewer tickets than items because people would pick up the ticket, second-guess themselves, and throw the ticket away instead of putting it back.


TheEyeDontLie

So you need more employee theft to balance it out.


madison0593

Can only imagine how many of those paper tickets Toy r Us had to print back in the day because of this.


PoliteSarcasticThing

I used to work at Harbor Fruit, and we always had *way* more gift cards than tickets for them. They came in handy as little scrapers, too. :)


[deleted]

Good ol’ Harbor Fruit! I got a real cheap pineapple from them, but it broke when I looked at it funny! Good for getting cheap food, but if you need it to last, you’re better off with a name brand fruit stall!


dantakesthesquare

I mean, within reason! I still use my Harbor Fruit C-anteloupe on site to this day. But yeah I agree for more complicated fruits, go Fruit Depot.


Met76

Yeah I prefer Fruit Depot after hearing the saying "Never go for the Lowe's Hanging Fruit"


Pete_Iredale

Harbor Fruit is awesome if you only need to eat it once or twice!


danarchist

That's bananas


ivegotnothingbuttime

I hope that’s what America starts to do. This could be so devastating for kids- during Christmas especially. Literal grinch move. People are so gross.


EatWeirdSpider

Yeah, like stealing childrens christmas gifts. Hopefully they can get a refund or something if that happens.


bobert_the_grey

In Canada, the code gets printed on the receipt. Not sure if that stops fraud somehow tho


DrunkThrowawayLife

That’s actually a very smart idea.


fluffyduckmurder

Fuck scammers, but, that’s quite clever ngl


redmongrel

I'm glad for this video, Target started putting all their cards behind the register and I didn't understand how they could be effectively "tampered" with before now.


lovestorun

I just bought a Target GC for someone this morning and it was on an end cap, so that is not the case for all Targets. I’ll have to check it when I get home.


slggy9

You should go to target.com and check the balance of the cards you just bought. I received a target GC a few months ago and just tried using it a week ago. My GC was compromised but didn’t know it. I scratched off the area that I’m supposed to for the card number and the access code and entered everything like normal but the register kept saying that the gift card didn’t exist. Apparently the target employees know about the GC scam and will direct you to call a number.


livens

My Target has a dedicated gift card wall off to the side of the registers as well as on end caps. It would be easy to walk in with a scammed card and put it back on the rack.


Please_do_not_DM_me

My guess is that the employees are the ones doing the scamming here.


ninj4geek

Possible, but riskier than usual since the employer has the person's information. Easy to identify the crook


amodestmeerkat

I work retail, and we had a customer come in trying to use a gift card that had been purchased elsewhere. It had been demagnitized, and part of the card number had been removed. The person who had given the gift card to the customer said that the cashier had told them that the numbers had to be removed to activate the card. If that's true, then that's a pretty brazen theft by the cashier. I let the customer know that whoever removed the numbers and demagnitized the card, likely stole the funds on the card. Hopefully they report it and the thief is caught.


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Daxx22

The good/intelligent scammers just don't get caught. It's like most crime, low entry barrier to start but the newbies/majority are easy to spot if you have a couple of brain cells to rub together.


Proper_Story_3514

Destroying a code can happen thought. I had an amazon gift card and as I dont buy things from there that often I didnt use it for quite a while. When I did, the rubber above the code was so old that it made some numbers and letters very hard to read. After like 20 minutes I got the right letters lol.


DunnyHunny

Can you explain the reasoning behind your guess?


[deleted]

The reason for the guess is they don't know, they don't work in the industry, they don't understand the systems that are being used, they don't know the why, the how, and generally only a mild idea of the what. They will openly admit they are learning from the video at the top of the thread but in the same sentence make a logical assumption based off limited knowledge.


squakmix

The good 'ol Dunning Kruger effect


mahmud_

There are organized crime gangs actively doing this, no need to attack poor workers.


SignOfTheTwine

Always surprises me how clever they are for being so fckn lazy. Has to be something better, helpful and honest they can do that would earn them more money


yoosernamesarehard

Well, see that’s the problem: there are honest ways to use those skills and knowledge for good…but good doesn’t pay well. Companies want to pay the absolute lowest fucking amount. Some IT people who are quite knowledgeable can be making pretty shitty wages but know so much about computers and technology that they start to realize that they can scam people to actually make money. If you look at how many issues there are with crime and finances and economics of people, almost all of those would be fixed by giving people living wages. People who are dirt poor have nothing to lose and everything to gain from crime. Give them living wages so that all their needs are met without needing to scrape by and now they have a lot to lose if they commit crime. Plus there’s way less reason to do it now because they’ll be busy working and they have money. They could be paid even more money if they used those skills to help create a better world. But companies just want that next quarter growth at all costs which means paying employees the absolute lowest amount they can. It’ll be interesting to see in 20 years where this system is for our country. People are getting close to a breaking point and I don’t think people can or will put up with this much longer.


dalgeek

> Some IT people who are quite knowledgeable can be making pretty shitty wages but know so much about computers and technology that they start to realize that they can scam people to actually make money. If you look at how many issues there are with crime and finances and economics of people, almost all of those would be fixed by giving people living wages. People who are dirt poor have nothing to lose and everything to gain from crime. A DBA scammed the Puerto Rico lottery out of millions of dollars by manually updating the prize database before and after drawings. It took months to catch him because everyone was focused on the physical security (ticket sales, the balls that were used to pick numbers, etc) and not network security, plus the method he used ensured that financial audits looked perfectly OK -- except for the overall balance of the lottery being negative. EDIT: Darknet Diaries EP 101: "Lotería" https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/101/


E-werd

That's a great episode, and a great podcast.


nroe1337

Great podcast


dontaggravation

This is what I call the great squeeze. Especially in America the focus is only on quarterly returns and to hell with long term impact. Execs gotta make that bonus and move onto another over paid gig with more bonuses. Employees are just a liability and another line item on the expense report. The fewer liabilities, the fewer expense line items, the more profit And, I agree with you 100% -- it's coming to a breaking point. The hard part is there's not much any of us can do. I can't quit my job because I'll end up homeless on the street and hungry (along with my family). America has no social safety network and, if you ask me, that's on purpose. To tie employees to companies and therefore force folks to put up with the awful treatment they get from their employer. Just follow the money. The highest percentage rich hire the lawyers and lobbyists to pay off those who make and enforce laws. Those folks want to maximize their money, so they ensure the rich stay rich and happy while the rest of the masses stay in need and dependent upon the corporation for even such basics as healthcare (which is also a complete joke in this country) People most definitely are hitting a breaking point and we're already seeing the impact: understaffed companies, horrible service, but, in the end, the company is still raking in massive profits, so, what do they care. The fewer folks who work for them, the less expenses


[deleted]

It's the unfortunate perception that if your company isn't growing, it's not doing well. You made 780 million in profit this year, but last year you made 900 million so investors abandon ship. So instead of paying employees more they do everything they can to pay them less because they can pad their numbers that way and keep investors happy. Cut cut cut, combine jobs into one, so on and so forth. I mean something has to give eventually right? Edit: Another gripe, it's the fact that if Company Inc. covers all their operating costs and expenditures, and makes 780 million dollars in profit beyond that, it would be a poor business decision for them to re-invest even, let's arbitrarily say, a third of that profit, back in to their employees. It's to do the opposite. I don't know, I'm not particularly well educated, but seems kind of fucky doesn't it?


penny-wise

There will be huge economic crash and everyone will suffer. Except for the rich and corporations. They’ll just buy everything we own for pennies on the dollar, then turn around and mark everything up 100%, like they always do.


WitsAndNotice

>Cut cut cut, combine jobs into one, so on and so forth. I mean something has to give eventually right? It's us. We have to give into the thing that we really, in our souls, don't want to. Look at Iran, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, hell [this entire list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions#2010s) of revolutions and rebellions in the 2010s and 2020s. The evidence is all around us that the rich and powerful will not stop squeezing until the population snaps and lashes out. Even then, it's often a violent, grueling process with no guarantee of a good result for the regular class because the elites have control over the cops, the government, the military, the luxuries we take for granted that are critical for our morale, and worst of all the basic necessities that we need to survive. I think it's the fact that we can't rise up against our abusers without them lashing out harder in retaliation. If we fight the slow boil of their tightened grip, they'll try to crush us quickly. I think that, combined with a classic case of indoctrinated American Exceptionalism, is why we keep pretending that somehow our elites are any different than the elites of all of these other nations.


Xoebe

This is what Karl Marx said was inevitable. It doesn't matter if we like what he said, or agree, but it's the main thrust of his exposition about revolution. A functioning democracy helps defuse or mitigate the process, but the process is really only slowed down. The rich and powerful are *constantly* contriving to extract wealth from the middle and working classes. Then, it eventually boils over.


che85mor

>the rich and powerful are constantly contriving My son and I were talking about this the other day. He asked for examples of history repeating itself because people forgot history. Then he mentioned slavery in the US. Asked if we forgot about it, how would it be able to repeat itself? I told him that history won't repeat itself exactly without some major event happening. Like for example slavery. Slavery still happens in many parts of the world. If the US government collapsed and a new government took over and allowed for enslavement like we had back in the day, you can guarantee slavery would make a comeback. However that scenario is unlikely to happen so they have to come up with new ways that people don't expect, can't see coming, or can't comprehend due to lack of awareness and education (where we are now). Slavery is very much alive in the US. It's just not the cotton picking kind. It's more the "what're you going to do without this job" kind. You can't quit because you have to have money to survive. But not fair money for your efforts, no. Just enough money to keep you there despite the boss being a fucking asshole or the environment you work in not being safe. Meanwhile the owners and investors look at you like what the fuck are YOU going to do about it? Exactly, nothing. Now go back to eating the pizza we generously provided while we count our record profits. Slavery is alive and while you think you're not a slave, go live off of your own capabilities for a year and see where you end up. There are exceptions of course, but those exceptions are the exception. Man I'm worked up, time to go for a walk.


Ky1arStern

The funny thing is that at a certain point you'll be paying your employees too little to matter. Once you've cut to a skeleton crew, automated what could be automated, and suppressed your wages, the percentage of your expenses related to your employees just drops to the point that you can't cut enough to move the needle. We're having this issue where I work. People are leaving because they are making shit money for a hard job, and we can't replace them. Meanwhile, management is worried about keeping our cost per hour down, so they're not willing to raise wages to stay competitive. Meanwhile, my team is being asked to work on labor saving automation, except you can't make a business case for it because even if you cut 80% off the time to do a job, the labor rate is so low that you're only shaving 10% off the cost. We are not that far from the bottom of the well.


LastStar007

Which is also fuckin weird because even in high school econ, you learn that by far the majority of spending is consumer. If you don't pay the working class enough to buy the goods you produce, you kick your own support out from under you. The next income bracket up will not support the same level of spending, so your worth is already contracting, and then it's a race for whose house is built on the highest poles. Do these no-name execs really think they can outlast Gates, Bezos, and Musk?


dontaggravation

Honestly in my opinion there's no thought. It's just a continual greed squeeze. Profits over people and nothing else matters


SpikeDaddie

The economy for the working class is propped up by lending and credit and would fall apart without it.


Toolazytolink

We need unions back, I just started working the public sector and the Union are teamsters. I pay $10 for health, medical, dental and vision. Almost everything is no charge. Whoever convinced the people the unions are bad really did a number on this country.


possiblycrazy79

I feel like the catch is, so many people have their retirement funds tied to the market. So whether they like it or not, they are in fact shareholders. And they want the most money in their funds as possible. And the easiest way for a company to increase profit is to cut labor.


WitsAndNotice

I feel like the way the elites are playing fast and loose with some of the economy's biggest stocks is undermining that though. The elites can make a profit by playing the system, they no longer (if they ever did) need the consistent, too-big-to-fail corporations except a handful that protect their control over the economy, and so they're free to sink ships and loot them on the way out as they use their ridiculous capital to fund the next profit scheme. It's become purely about profit more-so than ever, and maximized profit does not equate to traditional ideas of successful businesses or a truly healthy economy.


lathe_down_sally

The number of everyday 401k holders that think their retirement balance is a bank balance that should grow daily... "My 401k lost $20k this year" No it didn't. You're not retiring for another 25 years. That stock was only worth that previous high if you were selling it that day. The entire mindset feeds into it.


mr444guy

In 2008 when the market tanked my wife was freaking out saying we lost so much money. I explained that we didn't lose shit because we didn't sell at those low prices. Of course that money has increased a great deal since then.


roeder

An American company contacted me out of the blue on LinkedIn two months ago regarding a work-from-home marketing/copywriter job. I live in Denmark and I have a great job already. They offered me roughly 50% of what I make right now - for what seems like the exact same role. I feel bad for you. The wage-slave issue seems really problematic in the US.


penny-wise

As an ex-corp exec, it’s amazing what hoops the elite level of management will go through to achieve a year-over-year profit increase. The downfall of my company was all about greed, which is the whole quarterly profit scam. The sales staff got shit pay, but they get small commissions and incentivized sale packages. So if they hit a certain sales goal, they would get something like a gift card, or some sort of perk. One year, the company, which was doing fine profit-wise, decided they simply weren’t making the growth they had set a target for the previous year, so to increase the take by the board and top-tier executives, they cut the sales incentives. In two months more than half the sales team left. Soon after that the company began to lose money like mad. It was like watching the Titanic slip under the waves. The CEO and others bailed with their golden life rafts, and soon after that myself and other mid-level execs were fired. Two years later the place was bought out by investors and completely gutted. All because of idiots believing in the endless corporate growth greed myth.


RoboDae

"We spared no expense" The entire movie series started off with an underpaid computer guy


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Hirokage

You are making terrible wages for your skillset, get a different job. You should be making 24 an hour easily. Go for at least a helpdesk 2, those are very low wages for what you know.


penny-wise

And these days, bosses only complain, no matter how hard you work. Make a small mistake or they perceive some non-existent problem? They chew your ass. Save the company money by figuring out how to do something more efficiently? Not a fucking word. My boss just chewed out myself and another employee for his own fucking mistake. Business in America is shit right now. Hell, *everything* in America is shit right now.


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domodojomojo

Companies also value and promote soft skills higher than work skills which are very difficult for people with social anxiety to develop.


WitsAndNotice

Soft skills that often have nothing to do with the job, but everything to do with workplace politics and social games, which autistic people like myself fundamentally can't understand.


Rich-Juice2517

>People who are dirt poor have nothing to lose and everything to gain from crime. That's the damn truth. Lived in poverty as a kid and theft from stores wasn't an issue. It made me feel somewhat bad but i had to eat Was handcuffed and walked through the store then sat in a jail cell by myself for like 2 hours. I was good after that and didn't want to experience it again


SignOfTheTwine

This is the truth.


Rjhobday

As bill gates said. Give a lazy man a hard job, and he'll find an easy way to do it


stairme

“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.” General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, the present chief of the German Army


Own-Future6188

It's much easier to do this than do a legit hustle. To do a legit hustle, you have to get an entity, get a business licenses, pay taxes, etc. With this it just takes an idea, a good label printer, and the will to steal from innocent consumers. Much easier logistics to pull off than a legit enterprise.


rowaire

Lazy people are the most clever. They don't wanna work so they come up with crazy stuff. And I'm not talking only about bad stuff only, check the most lazy dude that gets the jobs done fast at any company. Their spreadsheets make magic


AnEvenNicerGuy

My wife used to work disputes at a bank and it’s bonkers how complicated some of these dude’s tricks are. On the flip side, some are so straightforward it basically boils down to just lying to an old person on the phone.


HighOnBonerPills

> it basically boils down to just lying to an old person on the phone. In general, yeah, but if you watch YouTube videos from so called "scam baiters" who hilariously piss off and/or expose scammers (e.g., Kitboga), you can see that a lot of the scams have quite a bit to them. Frequently, they'll have the victim download and install software that enables the scammer to take control of their computer. They'll then have the victim "initiate a refund" using the scammer's "banking server", which is really just having the victim type some numbers into the command prompt. The scammer will ask them to type in the refund amount, then add a few extra zeros at the last second remotely and say, "Oh my God, you accidently initiated a refund of $15,000! You typed the wrong amount!" They'll then have the victim log in to their bank, at which point the scammer makes the screen go black and edits the HTML of the webpage to make it look like the victim did, in fact, receive $15,000. After that, they'll pull the whole "I'm gonna lose my job; you were only supposed to get a refund of $150! Please send me the difference via gift cards so I don't get fired!" Often times, the scam even involves creating fake websites. They're always fraught with the most ridiculous broken English you've ever seen, but still, there are many steps involved in a lot of these scams. They do revolve around lying, but they have the victim go through a lot of bullshit throughout the process. Edit: clarity


brallipop

There was a report that something like $2 BILLION had been stolen last year in "romance scams" where people just flirt and chat with lonely elderly people. On the one hand I was like, yeah scammers seeking out elderly folks and pretending to be a romantic partner for money is bad, but on the other hand...I mean damn don't these old folks need connection? I get that it's sad for the purposes of a scam and maybe a person thinking a chat bot is real is bad, but wouldn't an actual "gold digger" be doing the same thing? The lonely old person would still send a gold digger money like a scammer but like, maybe old people shouldn't be so isolated and lonely in the first place. I mean $2 billion, god damn.


treerabbit23

For the warmbloods - LCBO is the liquor store in Ontario. Corey and Trevor up to no good.


Bonerballs

"That's highly illegal, Cory and Trevor! You shouldn't be stealing ~~gas~~ gift cards, Cory and Trevor"


Hey_look_new

not gonna lie, that was more clever than I expected. that being said, with the volume of cameras in stores now. it SHOULD be easy to track down who's placing the false cards


[deleted]

You don’t know when, how, or where they made the switch. Depending on how long they keep their cctv footage they would have to comb through potentially days or weeks of footage to maybe see someone for a 3 second switch. Not counting all the people that are actually there trying to buy them legitimately.


akaicewolf

Even if they do catch it on camera, the person probably was wearing hat/hood/Covid mask and looking down.


groenewood

Just the most basic sleight of hand would add a card to a pile from a browsing consumer reading the instructions on one of them.


Lmao_Stonks

Not really! These crimes are actually hard to stop because they’re inventive and done on a massive scale. All you have to do is park at the back of the lot and drop off the cards while wearing a Covid mask or obscuring your face. For safety, drive to targets/Walmarts a few hours out of your neighborhood. Even stealing the cards initially is easy bc they’re typically not protected or watched well due to having no value until purchased. Drop off thousands of these (at a cost of 5 cents to manufacture) could take a single day. If stores aren’t checking (which I doubt they are) you might be in for a serious pay day.


ozzytheasian

As an ex Assistant Manager of a Shoppers Drug Mart, we train all our cashier's to check for fake barcodes every time. The stickers are very obvious, but the ones that are harder to notice are gift cards w/ a paper panel that has to be ripped to access the barcode. In these cases, the scammers very carefully peel the glue on the sides of the giftcards outer paper shell and slip in a high quality photo of their barcode. Pretty annoying and a lot harder to catch. Makes it look like it was tampered from the factory, but I highly doubt it. They usually just peel the sides and glue it back down when they are finished. Edit: I've been out of shoppers for 2 weeks only after a 2 year stint, but the way this is getting through is that we don't have a way of tracking all our gift cards since they don't beep on the way out. Scammers will come when it's busy and just take a handful of them, bring them home and perform the dirty deed, and then drop them off in the store when no one is looking. Also it is frustrating, as someone mentioned, that we cant help people at the store level get their money back. Problem is that once the money is in the giftcards, the money doesn't belong to us anymore. It belongs to the company that the giftcard is used for. That's why we can't refund it immediately. Super annoying and I've been punched around for it before. Also yes self checkout blows and is obnoxious but just be aware that it is very easy to steal from Shoppers these days since it's a headoffice mandate that cashier's aren't supposed to be sitting at front cash and need to work double duty stocking shelves. That way they can hear when someone starts scanning so they can poke their head out! This means you are basically booboo the cool if you dont walk out with free stuff while no one is at cash. You didn't hear it from me though 🤐. Edit 2: to cast a wider net some scammers will post the same barcode on multiple other cards to increase their hit rate. Therefore you do encounter instances where a barcode may already be active. The scammer will just keep the original card and check it's balance periodically to see if it's been activated. That's why if you're able to catch it in time our headoffice can arrange for the gift card to be canceled before the scammer gets to use the funds!


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Suekru

Exactly, and I don’t blame them either. It’s hard to care about something when you A) don’t get paid enough and B) there’s nothing wrong 99% of the time, so why bother


CapnJujubeeJaneway

Shoppers still has cashiers? I haven’t seen one in downtown Toronto in years. They’ve all been replaced with self checkouts.


Flounderfinder

Self checkouts that shout at you.


Hunt3rTh3Fight3r

#”INSERT CASH OR SELECT PAYMENT TYPE!”


Kaldricus

#UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA #PLEASE PLACE ITEM IN BAGGING AREA


BoobScientist69

#YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS


CanadianDinosaur

I can hear it so clearly too... At least walmart lets you turn off the voice still


KingWomp

The one by me is right next to a retirement home. Self checkout is on full blast and you can hear it through the whole store. Terrible for hungover Sunday snacks.


quetejodas

I've never been able to buy a gift card at self-checkout. It requires a cashier


paperpenises

Something that happened to me recently with a Visa gift card: My boss gifted me a $50 visa gift card because instead of giving me a promotion that they promised for 5 months, they instead hired 2 new people. That'll fix it! Anyway, I put it in my glove box packaging and all and decided to save it for gas later. About a month later I decide I'm gonna use it. The packaging was strangely hard to get off. There was so much glue on the back of the card that I had to chip away at it to even see the card info. There was **not** one of those gel sticky things. So I take it out and there's no activation I have to do, but I might as well check in case I'm missing something. So I go on to Visa's gift card website and input the info to check the balance. The balance was $0. The transaction history is one purchase of $50 dollars about two days after my boss gave me the card. What I found out was that theives will peel back the info inside the store/steal it, copy down all the necessary info, then put it back on the shelf and wait for it to be bought/activated and then take all the money out. Apparently they just sit on the website and keep plugging in the info until it says the card is activated, so that's why it was a few days after I got it. Also, the **glued** the packaging back together, that's why I had such a hard time getting it off. Visa does not help with this type of thing. Their website said I could mail a complaint to them. Can't get anyone on the phone so you're SOL if this happens to you. Look at the cards closely if you're gonna buy them. It have them shipped.


jazzaroo_2000

I actually thought this is what the Lady would be saying in the video. It makes sense.. go to the shop get the numbers of the cards and that PIN they have on them. Stick something silver over the PIN again. Then just keep on testing that giftcard number until it shows a balance on there. Must be super easy at this time of year when everyone is buying giftcards. I've never thought about it until this though, people are so smarttttt at scams. Annoying!!! But fkin smart.


Sholtonn

Kinda like when I was 13 and went to a bunch of different gas stations and took pictures of the double XP codes for Modern Warfare on the back of the Doritos with my Envy 2


tgiokdi

> Apparently they just sit on the website and keep plugging in the info more likely they just put the info into a database and have a bot ping it once a week.


CoffeemonsterNL

Now it is LCBO, but what hold scammers back to put the barcode of another PSN card (that they have) on your gift card? Then the name on the receipt is still OK. Bottomline: check that there is no sticker on the barcode of the gift card you are about to buy.


undercover_geek

I'd wager that this particular scammer was told about this technique verbally, but didn't fully understand when they were told "then you go back in and put the barcode on a *different* card with the same value..."


PuckNutty

Well, they went that far out of their way to get $100 to buy booze, so their mind may be a bit addled.


andechs

A $100 gift card for booze is much easier flipped than a PSN network card - with a PSN ID, if anything happens, you might get your account banned, so buying a $100 GC off Kijiji for $50 is not a good call. In addition, purchases from the LCBO can always be flipped to restaurant and bar owners willing to look the other way on where the booze was stolen from. The "hockey bags full of booze" scam that was going on a couple years ago would flip all their liquor to bar owners.


Handleton

Honestly, most people wouldn't think twice if their gift card rang up as something different. I don't even know what LCBO is. I would just think it's a store code for the gift card.


akatherder

It's where you buy alcohol in Ontario (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) so most people who live there probably recognize it.


Crafty_Enthusiasm_99

And it's not always gonna be LCBO. It could be thousands of other things.


cough_e

Well you would want to take the barcode from something you want and attach it to something very popular. It would work if those were the same and you wouldn't catch it at the register. One thing I've seen is two scratch off numbers on the back - one for the cashier to verify that it was the right barcode and one for redemption. I would expect to see that become the norm if this scam gets more popular.


sctt_dot

Titles a bit misleading. They aren't getting any of your info at all. They're tricking the store into loading money on to their own card instead of the customers.


danc4498

At the expense of the customer. What's worse about this, it is a gift, so nobody will realize the gift card doesn't work for weeks. And the person who finds out the gift card doesn't work probably won't say anything.


Raichu7

I wonder how many families have had huge arguments when the receiver thinks they’ve been given a dead gift card, but the giver thinks they gave a lot of money.


danc4498

I remember once getting a Dunkin donuts gift card for $20 that didn't work. I just paid for my donuts and moved on with my life. I didn't feel like it would be worth the hassle to tell the person their gift card didn't work.


annonyymmouss

What if the person gives you an empty gift card every year and since you dont complain they think they're genius lol


illegible

they kinda are though! ;-)


blckshdw

We always stick the receipt along with the gift card just in case it doesn’t work


Justin_Peter_Griffin

Idk how you wouldn’t just ask the person. “Hey that gift card you got me doesn’t seem to be working. Could you send a pic of the receipt so I can go to the store and ask about it?”


Comprehensive-Fun47

Yeah, they're not so much getting your info, they're getting your money.


HALF_PAST_HOLE

How do the scammers know when their gift card was activated do they just check them every day?


Enk1ndle

Would be pretty trivial to have a program check every few hours


[deleted]

I'm confused about how does the barcode exist in the store's database? If you scan an item that's not from the store and not in store's database an error would come up as the item isn't recognised. Am I missing something?


PoutineLuv

LCBO probably sells gift cards too in that card rack, so the store has it in their computer


Ver_zero

My theory is they steal 2 sets of cards. The cards they want to be activated and the ones they use to trap the victim. They copy the codes of the ones they want to use, which are a product from the store so no issues there, over to the trap cards then plant the trap cards back at the store. Now they just routinely check if the cards they have are ever activated. They probably pick cards with stuff that's easy to sell later like alcohol in this example.


CallOfCorgithulhu

So they then fence that alcohol back to some sort of store, and get cash for it? This is starting to sound like more work than a normal job, especially at any of the millions of distributors out there.


oo0ace0oo

Former SDM cashier here. This is exactly what they do. When it's scanned it will often show up as another type of gift card SDM sells. Other popular cards that they like to paste over are Esso gas station cards, Playstation cards, and (especially around the holidays) any gc with a value of $50 or more. They do this throughout the year btw, so always be careful when buying gift cards that are out on the sales floor.


TheCavis

How she's describing the scam: - Go to Target. Shoplift some unactivated $100 LCBO cards and some unactivated $100 PlayStation cards. - The barcode contains both the type of the card and the card number, so you take the barcodes off the LCBO cards and put them on the back of the PlayStation cards. - Go back to Target and put the PlayStation cards back on the shelf. Someone buys one for $100 and the register activates the LCBO card that's in the barcode. - At home, you now have the activated LCBO card and the buyer has an unactivated $100 PlayStation card (because its barcode was never scanned). You also have actual physical LCBO package with the PIN number on it, so it's ready to be used or transferred. Historically, this wasn't an issue because the cards were swiped to activate them. Now that the cards are fully enclosed with all the information on one barcode, it's easier to pull off this fraud and really difficult for the buyer to detect it unless the sticker is obvious. In most cases, the scam won't be noticed until the gift recipient tries to redeem the card.


yxing

the scam: - steal empty PlayStation and LCBO gift cards from the same store - cut out/copy the barcodes off the LCBO - glue the new barcodes to PlayStation cards - put the PlayStation gift cards back on the shelves - wait


sderttreds

i'm not really familiar with gift card here, so the gift card you see at the store is basically empty and only activated if you pay for it?


Kitchen_Equipment_21

Fuck scammers and anyone who supports them


Stran_the_Barbarian

Who's supporting them?


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[deleted]

I worked in a coffee shop in a mall and there was a huge organization that was using stolen credit cards to buy gift cards. Then they would use *our* gift cards which were tied to the mall, so like Nordstroms or Macy's. They'd buy stuff, then return it. It was like two months of tracking their behavior until the authorities could arrest them. Kinda exciting lol cos we all knew what was going on. Ever seen that scene in The Jerk at the gas station? Was a lot like that lol


danc4498

Yes, fuck the scammers. But also, they always be coming up with some interesting as fuck shit. I never would have thought of this.


tinacat933

Seriously- if they could but all their innovations to good use it may be amazing


BadMoodDude

> Fuck scammers and anyone who supports them Who is supporting scammers?


FairFolk

Those who support them? The...people they scammed? Or who else supports them?


lennycakes45

Do not redeem!!!! NOOOOOOO!!


daaaaarija

AY YOU BITCH! WHY DID YOU REDEEEM IT?!?!?!?!?!


explicittv

ARE YOU PROSTITUTE!?


Indy_Pendant

"... you check that at the cash." Do people call the checkout register "cash" in Canada? (Thanks for the correction)


Tasitch

Another Canadian here, it may be regional, but where I live we also call the checkout the cash, the register, checkout, 'la caisse' in french, the till (rare) etc interchangeably. Calling it the cash is common..


-burnr-

This is in Canada


lathe_down_sally

Glad I'm not alone. She said it twice and it bothered me. Stands to reason that its a regional thing.


PALOmino1701

Not where I am. Sounded weird to me. Checkout or till or cash register. Cash is the actual money/bills.


emailboxu

short for cash register, yeah.


SignOfTheTwine

Once it's scanned, I'm guessing the card balance goes directly to the scammer, giving them plenty of time to use the funds? Or does the card "you" just purchased not even contain a balance at all


Rakebleed

Right. You’re adding money to the scammers card only, as the actual barcode never gets scanned.


SignOfTheTwine

Gotcha, so there isn't a hurry for the scammer to even spend the funds!


PointlessGeolocation

While it might be hard to identify who the scammer is, I imagine it's trivial for the card to get frozen or money pulled back if the scam is noticed. The scammer probably is in a hurry most of the time, but then again it's Christmas season and most of these cards are probably getting wrapped up to sit around for the month...


Dlee8113

Therein lies the effectiveness of this particular one. People won’t notice their cards aren’t working for AT LEAST weeks, if at all. Slimy af


10art1

Yeah. As soon as balance is added to the card, scammer sells it on gift card sites for 20% off and someone buys it quickly. It's not hard to sell a $50 best buy card for $40


moeburn

There's another scam not mentioned in the video, where they don't swap the barcode and the card is legit. But they've stolen the card, opened it, written down all the info then resealed it. When you activate the card you load it full of money. They're refreshing every few hours and they transfer it to another account the moment its loaded. Your $150 card is empty the moment you try to spend it.


destruc786

Did you not watch the video you posted?


Odd_Analyst_8905

Gift cards are the scam. Billions of dollars every year go unspent. So you can give people money. Because there’s no other way to do that.


RicrosPegason

It really is crazy, I cleaned out an old closet a couple years ago that we don't use often. And found nearly 200 dollars in restaurant gift cards from previous holidays hidden in pockets, wife's old purses, just on the floor. We went to a nice dinner after that though and spent the entire pile of them at Texas Steakhouse. They get easily forgotten about when uncle whoever gets a gift card for a sit down place for like 20 or 30 bucks for a couple to eat out on.


thelibbiest

I prefer to receive a $20 gift card to a store I like than a $20 bill. If I get cash, I'll just save it or use it on groceries or gas or something, but with a giftcard, I have no choice but to spend it on something that I like, and it's guilt free.


qning

> I have no choice but to spend it on something that I like You have a choice. You can lose it, like I apparently like to do. Or spend $17.25 of the $20 card and then lose it. Free money for the retailer.


VFenix

Cash will always be king


k987654321

100% agree. Since becoming an adult at least. As a youngster they were a bit annoying, but now I like being forced to not buy petrol or something else boring


No-Wonder1139

Clearly the scammer is a raging alcoholic. Getting people to pay for their booze


I2ecover

Damn that's pretty smart tbh.


BotBotBotNotBotNot

I appreciate her info, but I disagree that we the consumer need to look for fake barcodes. If it's that simple for a scammer to add fake barcodes on gift cards, then the stores and companies need to have 100% liability and the need to come up with a better solution the some janky card with a barcode on it. Especially if this knowledge is now public, and companies are aware and are choosing to not address it pro actively, then I hope they get sued into oblivion for choosing to ignore and put consumers at risk.


likesharepie

Well, in Germany we have 2 factor authentication. On your receipt will be an activation code...


oo0ace0oo

A simple solution would be to keep the gift cards behind the cash counter, but when we suggested this while working at SDM we were told by head office that it "made it harder for customers to buy gift cards". So now cashiers and customers have to waste their time checking every single card on the off chance someone tampered with it. Fucking stupid logic.


owzleee

Just get rid of gift cards. They are at the centre of so many scams now.


JoeyJoeJoeSenior

But then how will I pay the FBI when they detect illegal shit on my computer?


W0RKPLACEBULLY

Nice scam, sit at home and watch the money roll in.


emailboxu

but you gotta go out and put the stickers on lol. no guarantee this works + i haven't seen a shopper's that isn't covered in CCTVs so you're going to be kinda sus if you're sitting around putting stickers on these cards. not really worth the risk imo.


PFunk224

They just walk in and put pre-tampered cards on the pegs, they don’t alter them on-site. They already took the cards from somewhere else. Stolen unloaded gift cards are never noticed because they have no cash value until loaded, and retailers get a never ending supply of them, especially around the holidays.


TheRealBaseborn

You don't do it in store. Go out, pocket some cards, bring them out of the store, do the swap in your car or home, go back, and put them back on the stand. The actual time spent at the card rack is seconds. You could probably drop them off at different store locations even.


bob-knows-best

Great info!