What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of? » All Comments

  • kcyw on 12/02/2016 - 22:56
    -2

    There was a similar thread about this

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/218719

    • 0p on 12/02/2016 - 23:06
      +10

      Correct me if I am wrong but I think loophole and bargains are different;
      Bargain:(Proposed by official means)
      a thing bought or offered for sale much more cheaply than is usual or expected.

      "the table was a real bargain"

      Loophole:(A unsolicited "sale")
      a ​small ​mistake in an ​agreement or ​law that gives someone the ​chance to ​avoid having to do something:
      ​tax loopholes

      The ​company ​employed ​lawyers to ​find loopholes in ​environmental ​protection ​laws.
      Please forgive me if I have done anything wrong by reposting/paraphrasing this is my first post…

      • 0p on 13/02/2016 - 00:12
        +1

        Edit*

        Please forgive me if I have done anything wrong by reposting/paraphrasing this is my first post…

        Please forgive me if I have done anything wrong by reposting/paraphrasing this is my first post…

        (No quotes)

      • IVI on 29/01/2017 - 13:36

        In app AliExpress (& likely also on AliExpress.com),
        "Free Shipping" may really mean "…for the First 'n' items"

        So, it's $2 Free Shipping

        So, you order 2, and are charged MORE THAN $4.

        If you have time (& it's worth it), just order as many as you like… ONE AT A TIME. Oy!

        PS Elsewhere (eg, in AU), see if ordering more than 1 saves S+H.
        Some vendors offer n% Off of you order more than 1; if it's a good enough Deal, sell the other on GumTree & Profit…

  • [Deactivated] on 12/02/2016 - 22:57
    +15

    Back when the buses allowed paper tickets…

    You could buy the cheapest Travel-10s, which would allow you to travel up to like 2 stages. Well, you could use that to travel up to any distance you wanted, since the train station guy who sold it told me that no one checks!

    …Except one time they did, and I was caught. F that train station guy.

    …But I had probably saved >$300 in two years.

    Seriously, NSW public transport prices are RIDICULOUS.

    • scrimshaw on 12/02/2016 - 23:07
      +3

      That takes me back to my uni days. The one time my four uni friends ALL decided to board a bus without the right type of T10 they got caught and each fined around two hundred bucks.

      • Euphemistic on 13/02/2016 - 07:53
        +8

        Or those t10 tickets that actually printed time, date and a small square on the ticket. The square was counted by the machine so it knew how many rides you had used. You could put the ticket in, the print would start, so the driver would know you paid and then pull the ticket out so it would print wonky and the square wouldn't register, meaning you could double up. Was a bit of a competition between mates to see how many prints you could get on one ticket.

      • thepigs on 18/02/2016 - 06:12

        Yeah I remember those. I had a ticket that would go through the machine and come out with nothing printed on it and it never expired. It was just special I suppose. Eventually it got so old it fell apart. But yeah I saved a couple of hundred dollars. Of course you shit yourself that you would get caught…

    • Diji1 on 13/02/2016 - 09:48
      -25

      I spent 2 years riding trains for free everyday in SA. Got caught once, still hundreds of dollars up after the fine.

      Only thing that stopped me was ticket checks being introduced at Adelaide Railway station exit.

      • tomsco on 13/02/2016 - 10:08
        +61

        I somehow don't think that would be classed as a loophole.

        • Neatoboy on 14/02/2016 - 11:49
          +22

          I class it as stealing

        • ibfragalot on 14/02/2016 - 14:50

          @Neatoboy: How are people downvoting this? Stealing = taking something that isn't yours, or that you have no right to. This is stealing.

        • Chivalry on 15/02/2016 - 09:05
          +10

          I am curious how peoples moral stance is to downvote Dijis "free" rides on SA trains, yet upvote Inoses partial ticketing and Alphaeus unstamped ticket for a year.

          would people care to differentiate?

        • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2016 - 12:01

          @Chivalry:

          I'm part of the kool kids krew here on OZBargain.

          Edit: also I paid something, at least?

        • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 15:34
          +3

          @Chivalry:

          No reasoning, plenty of people here Stealing shit but because they actually payed something its more "moral" or something.

          Just stupid Self riotous bull really.

        • Eivad on 15/02/2016 - 16:50
          +3

          @Chivalry: I agree, they're both stealing. Travelling beyond the number of sections prescribed by your Travel10 is not permitted - it's not a loophole - just stealing.

        • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 11:03

          @Eivad:
          Being 'naughty' while not being caught…

        • [Deactivated] on 13/07/2016 - 08:12

          @Neatoboy: i class charging for public transport "stealing"

    • Alphaeus on 13/02/2016 - 10:08
      +35

      Again in the days of paper tickets I once travelled a year on a $40 MyMulti weekly ticket.

      If you purchased them from a train station they came with a start date. But I discovered you could also purchase them from convenience stores where they didn't come printed with a date: for these the timer didn't start until you dipped the ticket the first time. The thing was that if you limited your travel to between two train stations that didn't have gates (as I was doing regularly at the time) you never actually triggered the start timer. If you got your ticket checked by train staff it was just a new ticket you purchased that day. Then I got a better job and that was the end of that.

      • 01011010 on 18/02/2016 - 10:40

        the convenience store should have stamped the ticket, but if you knew one who didn't.. then bazinga!

        • Cryptarcadian on 18/02/2016 - 21:57

          No, they should never do that because you can buy multiple in advance (i.e. for future weeks) so you don't need to keep going back to the store. That was one of the intended purposes of them being sold away from stations.

        • 01011010 on 19/02/2016 - 08:22

          @Cryptarcadian: idk when that changed. but when i worked in a newsagency - 20+ years ago, we needed to stamp the weekly tickets.

    • xdiep on 14/02/2016 - 05:57
      +8

      Back in the day when only the day and month were hole punched by the conductors in Melbourne (e.g. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2676/3966257496_16529f308c.jp…) I remember my older brothers and sisters having a box with 365 days worth of daily tickets which they would then reuse year after year.

      • mskeggs on 15/02/2016 - 18:18

        When I was a boy in Sydney the weeklies were stamped with the number of the week they were issued, and people would save them till the next year. And then one day they issued them out of sequence and fined a lot of people.

      • Fagin on 19/02/2016 - 00:08

        Good story but the ticket in your link has the year printed on it. So easy to spot if try to use in another year.

    • devnull73 on 16/02/2016 - 17:58
      +4

      In Perth we used to have these paper 10-ride things that youd put in a machine that would chomp a ride off.

      Lots of us kids got really adept at jagging it in at a slight angle so it would chomp a ride off the corner, and not the actual ride.

      One kid actually got on the bus one day ahead of me and made the sound with his mouth, and it was good enough to fool the driver.

      • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 18:15

        it was good enough to fool the driver

        lol…

        But i doubt they give a (profanity) anyway

      • baggyred on 19/02/2016 - 16:56

        That was me - I got to the point where I had to cover the multirider with my hand because half of the head was missing due to being chomped on the angle!!

        Great memories.

        I had a single mum, so I'm sure she appreciated the month's value I got out of a weekly ticket

        • devnull73 on 19/02/2016 - 17:08
          +1

          This kid actually got busted at some point because I think he restored his card by tracing it and sticking some thin card to the back of it…. or something like that :)

          I also seem to recall that some of the drivers got wise to it because it made a slightly different sound when you jagged it……

          This is nearly 30 years ago mind you :)

  • braskic on 12/02/2016 - 23:00
    +19

    4c/L off petrol at Coles Express with RAC WA. I don't even have RAC anymore but my expired card still scans and still provides me discount. And because I don't need to ration petrol coupons anymore on really cheap days I refuel twice, once in the morning and once at night.

    • cheesecactus on 13/02/2016 - 15:01

      Wonder if my expired RAC free2go card works….. i should check it next time i fill up

    • paaj on 23/02/2016 - 13:19

      I'm with you on this one!

  • [Deactivated] on 12/02/2016 - 23:18
    +40

    About 2 years ago, Myer emailed a $20 off coupon (no minimum spend) … bought several hundred dollars worth of stuff…

    • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 08:56
      +6

      So you got $20 off?

      • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 09:52
        +26

        It was an email coupon with a generic barcode, ie reusable unlimited number of times.

        All of my purchases were in the $21-25 region

        • chipstss on 13/02/2016 - 19:30
          +1

          How long did it last?

        • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 19:39
          +8

          @chipstss:
          Almost 3 days…

        • TurkishDelight on 14/02/2016 - 21:55
          +2

          @sp00ker: lol luckiest guy here.

    • CI on 13/02/2016 - 09:33
      +4

      I remember. Was a great day. In hindsight not so much, lost much more on my Myer shares though

      • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 09:53
        +3

        Teaches you for buying shares in an private equity IPO…

    • Bad-Wolf on 15/02/2016 - 12:38

      totally did the same thing!

    • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 12:26

      I remember this! I used it too. It was late 2013/ early 14. I bought so much and travelled to every single counter in the store so could save so much.
      One guy realised and warned the other counters so I just went to another Myer.

      Saved a few hundred with it.

      Edit - I am thinking of this one…is that what you meant? It was $30 minimum though.

      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/125774

      There was this one too
      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139315

      • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 20:50

        I meant the 2nd one - only $10 min spend.

  • iridiumstem on 12/02/2016 - 23:29
    +14

    Not sure whether this counts as a loophole, but for a week, visiting Westfield gave me a Google Reward Survey at least once per day, which lead me to get around $4~5 dollars worth of Google credit. It was good while it lasted.

    • scrimshaw on 12/02/2016 - 23:30
      +2

      That's not a loophole, that's probably more like coincidence since Westfield is a shopping centre and Google likes to know what kind of places, business and brands you've been visiting / buying recently. They're building data and getting a better picture of you from your location information.

      I get surveys a lot too, sometimes twice a day, and I visit a variety of shopping centres (I work at one as well)

      • iridiumstem on 12/02/2016 - 23:32

        Probably, that said, it gave me same question about where I've been to (of which all of them had Westfield in) and how my experiences with Westfield was for entire week. It did made me go, why is it asking me the exactly same question that it has been asking since last week? Not complaining of course, I did end up getting a app I wanted for free.

        • scrimshaw on 12/02/2016 - 23:35

          Is it one of those questions where you can tick up to 4 or 5 different boxes for different locations and then they ask you to rate 1 to 5 stars? That's probably generating data for the business that signed up for google analytics.

          On a website, you can measure how many people who visit your website actually bought something, and how long they stuck around for.

          In a real shop there's no way of doing that, but since GPS is fairly accurate they know how long you've stayed in a certain spot and which stores you went to. Then a day later they ask you to rate your experience with the shop. Your feedback is then sold to the business who is using Google insights.

        • iridiumstem on 12/02/2016 - 23:38

          @scrimshaw: Yep. I assume it'd be. Though, I was surprised that it asked same question on me for 5 days straight. I've gotten 50% of what I got in 11 months time this month, so I am very happy.

          Though reading what you told me did make me realise that it probably was Westfield or Google collecting as much data as possible, in an inefficient way. I'd assume they'd want to get as many people as possible, but they spent money on me for 5 days, wasting a person worth of credit each time they ask me the same question (unless their agenda is not about getting consumer satisfaction, but something else).

        • dantione on 14/02/2016 - 01:36
          +7

          @scrimshaw: I do tech stuff for concerts and conferences. Recently in my main corporate work, witnesses Westfield's master plan with their free WiFi.

          They have an access point in every store, and they map your footprint and time spent in each store. As your phone jumps to the closest access point, they get store and duration information.

          Quite creepy… Very big brother. And if you sign in via Facebook to their network, they can resell this information. Actually aiming to get it to 1) you google search for red dress 2) you look at myer/djs/etc 3) you go to Westfield store, it picks up your device 4) shop attendant approaches you… Subtley suggests the red dress you looked at on their/a competitors website

        • Apple96 on 14/02/2016 - 02:14
          +1

          @aryan12: And now I'm never using their free wifi.

        • newozbargainermelb on 14/02/2016 - 18:08

          @aryan12: internet of things

        • djones145 on 15/02/2016 - 09:10

          @scrimshaw:
          I've been getting this survey for the last few months daily, got around 35 bucks in google so far with spending

          I do go for lunch walks around shops daily

          pretty awesome I have to say

        • hahaboy on 15/02/2016 - 22:33

          @aryan12: "subtley". I'm not sure how subtle it can ever be if a person suddenly approaches you and offers the exact product you want. It will require a big societal change.

        • tetsuma on 15/02/2016 - 22:54

          @aryan12:

          I like this idea.

        • paablo84 on 16/02/2016 - 15:32
          +1

          @Apple96: Their Wi-Fi is mostly useless; it doesn't work within stores (where I spend most of my time in a shopping centre, since I actually shop), and expires after an hour (I kinda understand that, since people could stay there all day uploading/downloading stuff, but I'd rather it have a quota than a timer).

    • Diji1 on 13/02/2016 - 09:49
      +1

      No I don't think being offered a survey which you then fill out is a loophole ;)

  • Blottski on 13/02/2016 - 00:36
    +82

    I used to stay at a place in Melbourne (YWCA on Elizabeth) when I used to come over to study and then had one of those junk food dispensers in the communal kitchen.

    Anyway I worked out that if you put a 5c piece in the machine, it would spit out the coin but register 5c as being paid on the machine.

    Lets just say being a student on an apprenticeship me and the other guy who I used to room with exploited the hell out of that machine when we were there….

    took them 2 years to work it out.

    • AlienC on 13/02/2016 - 00:46
      +2

      hahaha i like this one the most, genius!

    • patinadiary on 15/02/2016 - 17:36
      +3

      well done…for a change (no pun intended) the 5c pieces were actually useful.

    • montorola on 16/02/2016 - 13:54
      +4

      Haha nice!

      I have this vision in my head of you repeatedly putting 5c in the machine, just like those poker machine zombies mindlessly putting coins in the machine.

  • Tal_Shiar on 13/02/2016 - 01:53
    -10

    Myki cards in Melbourne… You scan in… scan at another gate and walk off and pray you don't get checked for a ticket on your way home. This should work on trams and buses if you do it quick enough

    • neil on 13/02/2016 - 02:02
      +2

      I don't get it. Bus, yeah, as the driver checks but on a tram you may as well not touch on at all as that will accomplish the same thing.

      • [Deactivated] on 14/02/2016 - 14:34

        I see people just walk onto the bus, sit down and the driver says nothing. I think some don't want to risk getting into an altercation so they just don't care.

        I wouldn't bother provoking some guy who looks like he's been up all night smoking meth, either.

    • Tal_Shiar on 13/02/2016 - 02:13

      I guess technically you could argue you've signed should you get busted on the tram and play dumb it signed you off..

    • Save 50 Cent on 13/02/2016 - 08:53
      +28

      A loophole is when you take advantage of someones else's mistake without getting in trouble if you get caught. What you are doing is basically a crime.

      • Diji1 on 13/02/2016 - 09:50
        -8

        Gonna call the po-po?

      • Tal_Shiar on 13/02/2016 - 14:04
        -2

        You scan on and off don't you? You are on camera scanning on at the station?

        • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:18
          +2

          You're also on camera scanning off?

      • baldur on 13/02/2016 - 22:41
        -1

        why is taking advantage of a loophole not a crime? just because it is not written in law books?

        • JIMB0 on 14/02/2016 - 06:46

          Its theft by finding, ie. you find someones property and instead of trying to find the owner and return it you decide to keep it there by permantley depriving the rightfull owner of it.

      • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2016 - 00:25

        Lol no.

    • stealthpaw on 15/02/2016 - 00:12

      You are the reason the public transport prices are being risen. Good work, the rest of us regular law-abiding taxpayers thank you.

      • Tal_Shiar on 15/02/2016 - 01:58
        -2

        no, I just have been fooled around with by ticket inspectors and poor service for far too long… I've fare evaded in the past, but i pay my fares like you do, I just don't throw money away when i've been forced to get a taxi home because of poor service, having to challenge a decision in court so ticket inspectors can look active while being sexist to men. You shouldn't have to have a monthly or yearly ticket to be compensated when the system really doesn't meet it's basic service requirements…

      • simulacrum on 15/02/2016 - 14:44
        +1

        I pay for PT but get a sense of satisfaction every time I see someone successfully fare evade.. I've relied on the PT system in melbourne constantly since i was in primary school.. and I have consistently received a bad service.

        over-zealous ticket inspectors on power trips. Crappy infrastructure, over-packed trains that don't run on time. This over-priced, non-functioning joke of a ticketing system etc etc etc.

    • cycleri3 on 15/02/2016 - 19:27
      +3

      The Myki ticketing system itself is a scam.

      Same ticket cost whether you go 1 or 2 stops or 50 stops. Where is the logic in that? It also favours tourists and office workers that drive into city cause the CBD trams are all in the free zone. So people drive in, park in the city then ride the tram at lunch time to grab lunch without paying PTV a cent. For commuters that travel back and forth from work they already have a daily fare so it makes no difference as they have already paid to use the trams. What a rip off.

      • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:20

        I think the word you're looking for is "rort" or "rip off". Scam implies you've been misled, but it seems you fully understand what you pay for and just think it's unfairly priced.

        • cycleri3 on 19/02/2016 - 19:51

          Well no. It is a scam.

          The last government offered this as a way of "Reducing" Public transport costs, and make Zone 1+2 users happy by dropping fares at the expense of zone 1 commuters but I'd guess pretty soon the "Cheaper" fare now would exceed their old Zone 1+2 fare and everyone will be paying more.

  • silverrat23 on 13/02/2016 - 01:54
    +2

    Any rewards programs that have a refer-a-friend scheme via email. e.g Nescafe Cup of Rewards.

    • FutureTech on 14/02/2016 - 23:57
      +9

      I did this for a groupbuy website and got caught after earning about $200 in rewards by referring myself. Boy was I embarrassed.

      • silverrat23 on 15/02/2016 - 00:29

        I'm guessing you were banned from the site, along with all $200 taken away?

        • FutureTech on 15/02/2016 - 01:02
          +5

          My account was frozen and they required my id to reactivate. I didn't bother so created a new account and move on. The $200 had been spent mostly because I spent the reward as I go and never accumulated on my account more than $40, so they only took away the last $20.

        • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 15:40
          +1

          @maolin95:

          HAHA that is awesome.

          "Yes , we need your ID to ummm, let you keep exploiting us"
          Like that was ever going to work.

      • strikerzebra on 15/02/2016 - 12:13

        You can still refer yourself on groupon :P

  • Nutrino on 13/02/2016 - 02:02
    +9

    Love the loophole where you pricematch a price error from another store. Actually… That deserves another post, called exploits.

    • paablo84 on 16/02/2016 - 15:35
      +1

      Except when a particular gaming store won't price-match a brand new game from another retailer, even though said gaming store would only be able to sell a used copy.

  • Gotchas on 13/02/2016 - 03:29
    +52

    Iv managed to get a an email address that receives lots of great offers from so many exotic places and kind people around the world
    Il be off to the to retire in the Caribbean once this windfall comes from Nigeria

    • scrimshaw on 13/02/2016 - 08:51
      +80

      Hello Peanut, my name is Scrimshaw Savimbi the 3rd, I am a former Moderator of Ozbargainia and I come to offer you my Eneloop collection worth 2 million in DickSmith dollars….

      • Gotchas on 13/02/2016 - 19:33
        +11

        Pls tell me more,(frothing at the mouth)

      • paablo84 on 16/02/2016 - 15:35

        order oz bargain

  • Nugs on 13/02/2016 - 08:34
    +11

    Tax deductions for cars;
    Studying at uni in the 90's, I delivered pizzas. It was cheaper to have multiple cars up to the 5000km usage threshold rather than having one car over the 5000km. I typically had 2, but had 3 at one point in time. Given I was using 4 cylinder self serviced Datsun's and 2 had LPG, they were only costing me about 15% of the cents/km that you claim back.

    All legit, isn't that a loophole?

    May still be the case.

    • Baysew on 13/02/2016 - 10:41
      +9

      I see you do your own tax as well.

    • GameChanger on 13/02/2016 - 14:48
      +15

      For each car you pay rego and insurance and servicing. You actually paid more than you claimed back.

      • nautic on 14/02/2016 - 04:06
        -2

        Rego he pays susbsequently for each car so that works out to be the same. Insurance is paid subsequently as well and same goes with servicing. Hence no extra costs.

      • Nugs on 14/02/2016 - 08:50

        nope.
        the running costs for the LPG cars was in the order of 8c/km - that included fuel, oil, filters, tyres, rego, insurance EVERYTHING.
        Tax claim rate was in the order of 50+c/km.

    • rbaggio on 17/02/2016 - 22:20

      Datsuns with LPG.

      You win Mr Ozbargain!

      • Nugs on 18/02/2016 - 15:47

        that was when LPG was on a weekly cycle from 20c/litre to 30. Unleaded was 60-65.
        filling up a 50 litre tank cost $10-15 depending on the day of the week and I would get 400-450km range.
        Uni was 50km each way, hence the conversion of the first one.
        the second one was bought already converted for $700, drove it for four years before being defected.

        • FirstNameLastName on 19/03/2016 - 23:49

          When I delivered pizzas I drove my dad's car.. He worked for BP in senior position so fuel was free.. My only running costs were speeding fines oops

  • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 08:37
    +70

    Surprised how many here think fare evasion is a morally acceptable loophole.

    • ozy on 13/02/2016 - 09:48
      +3

      As long as they tag the words F#€k or €#nt into their seat onboard I guess I accept they are challenged people and accept the morality of their choices.
      Rest assured they will live shorter more disadvantaged lives, often ended soon after they get caught fair evading and receiving a fine. Not being able to pay fines leads to all sorts of causes of death.
      (Suicide, depression, starvation, being on the end of a jail shiv etc..)
      Sleep easy HereBobButtons.

      That said, if your train breaks down (yes run privately but put in place by the taxes you pay) or is cancelled and you are docked at work for tardiness, then a free compensation is in order!
      Grab a broken bottle or a knife from the work kitchen and proceed to your free train ride home, make sure you keep entertained by scratching into the back of the seat/ wall/glass windows the profanity of your choice.

      • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 11:24
        +1

        …Yeah!

        They take us home late, or take us to work late… Yet they have the balls to say, "Sorry for the delay, thanks for your cooperation. Full fare thanks."

    • Diji1 on 13/02/2016 - 09:51
      -3

      What the heck has morals got to do with it?

      • ozy on 13/02/2016 - 09:55
        +13

        Whats love got to do with it, got to do with it, got to do with it.

        • Charity on 13/02/2016 - 18:56
          +4

          He's a private dancer, a dancer for money, and any old music will do

      • miarn on 13/02/2016 - 15:18
        +1

        Pretty poor troll mate, you really need to lift your game.

    • Clear on 13/02/2016 - 10:06
      +2

      Most people do it here with the buses. The problem is that there is no signage and the drivers don't tell you that you need to upgrade for certain distances and hops. You're expected to know it already.

      • sellingoutsoon on 15/02/2016 - 13:34
        +2

        Most people do it here with the buses

        I know it was Valentine's Day yesterday…but ewwww

    • MrMcHairyHead on 08/03/2016 - 19:15
      +1

      It is. Public transport should be free.

  • gawky on 13/02/2016 - 09:22
    +38

    Use a non-expired gift credit card with $0 credit on parking ticket machines. Use to accept the card and give maximum allowable ticket time.

    • bargaino on 15/02/2016 - 22:30
      -4

      Errr, that is well beyond fare evasion. It think its actually fraud. Not as bad as stealing, but still criminal.

      • gawky on 16/02/2016 - 10:10
        +8

        Ok.

    • Bluewhisky on 16/02/2016 - 17:19
      +2

      Does this still work?

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:22

      What's a "gift credit card"? Is that like a woolies gift card or does this refer to something else?

  • muncan on 13/02/2016 - 09:28
    +67

    Bought some Qantas top up points the other day, and the operator asked me to stay on the line to complete a survey. I hung up when the survey started. Saved a minute of my time which I could then spend on OzBargain.

    • massafiri on 13/02/2016 - 19:56
      +8

      There's a special space in hell for people like you. See you there.

    • matt_will_fix_it on 13/02/2016 - 21:29
      +6

      Buying qantas top up points is the opposite of a bargain. They are so expensive.

      • muncan on 13/02/2016 - 21:35
        +9

        Unless purchased for a loophole.

    • Hinee on 17/02/2016 - 15:27
      +1

      I hope you realise that survey is designed purely for KPI's to do with that individual customer service rep. I don't know if I'm just a nice bloke, but if they have legitimately done me well then I'll always spend the ~60 seconds confirming it.

      • paaj on 23/02/2016 - 13:25

        they should then do the survey like iiNet - send you an email after your call and you can reply whenever you want. But the thing that craps me the most is no follow up after a bad review (iiNet usually follows up)

        Note: I don't work for ii

        • koplik8 on 02/03/2016 - 04:30

          I'm sick of those email surveys. Back in the day they use to send you a voucher or something to say thanks when you rated a companies service. Now you get nothing!!
          I've seen a few of the banks saying you could win a $2k voucher. So where do they post the actual winner?

  • That Guy on 13/02/2016 - 09:35
    +43

    When Mars first started the free bars promotion if you looked at the wrapper on the right angle you could see the '!' in the "You've won a free bar!" printed on the inside of the wrapper.

  • kima on 13/02/2016 - 09:37
    +24

    yeah i'm going to share my secret loopholes with you so you can exploit them when you don't share with us.

    • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 10:26
      -9

      Exactly this^^ … No longer would it be an exploit if i told youse and youse all jumped on.

      The best well known recent ones around here , which are dead now, were the woolies codes 12-18 months ago.

      Was consistently getting about 40% off expensive items such as alcohol, toiletries, coffee, bonds underwear - i still got a few cans of coopers home-brew left

      In a similar vein, COTD had some good ones mid last year when they started the club catch trial and the planets lined up with a $10-$20 code and a 30-40% off sale - cheap shoes, clothes and powertools

      So In summary, if you are posting your exploit here, its either dead or barely worth sharing - or you are naive enough to think that people wont totally rinse it and spoil it for everyone

      • 0p on 13/02/2016 - 16:23
        +8

        As mentioned before you may post the details of a store "anonymously" ie
        -That "big electronics retailer"
        -That online store
        -That burger joint
        -That caravan park
        Etc…

        • BestofOZB on 14/02/2016 - 17:58
          +2

          Then we all try to figure out which caravan park it is….nice game.

        • QuickToThePointless on 15/02/2016 - 18:04
          +4

          -That "big electronics retailer" - lets just call it D. Smiths
          -That online store - lets just call it x-bay
          -That burger joint - lets just call is hungry x
          -That caravan park - lets just….check mate!

          What about these

          -that pay Tv provider
          -that government owned telco
          -that american video game manufacturer

        • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 20:20

          @pointless comment:

          that american video game manufacturer

          The UPlay $2 game exploit was so good, my UPlay account is full of games thanks to that.

          Sadly I screwed up the EA Origin free game exploit and only got one game. Didn't learn about the add/remove from cart trick to get all of them free until after the promo ended :(

      • revolutio on 18/02/2016 - 01:38
        +1

        Oh youse guys, don't downvote him.

  • IdLikeToBeATree on 13/02/2016 - 09:38
    +18

    I found a loophole/glitch in my internet provider which allowed me to change between plans as many times as I wanted during the month which reset my data used so I basically had unlimited net for about 2-3 months. Then they discovered it and the internet just went back to being unusable. Sad times

  • ozy on 13/02/2016 - 09:54
    +7

    Use AMEX through paypal to pay my phone bill and earn points.
    Also until recently, purchasing EGift Cards using AMEX online to get points then go shopping at woollies a d scan my EDR card to get more AMEX points.

    • Neoika on 13/02/2016 - 14:00

      How do you scan a Woolworths Rewards Card to earn AMEX points?

      • venu on 13/02/2016 - 16:15
        +3

        he's referring to frequent flyer points. Earn by buying a gift card with a FF credit card, then earn again when you spend at woolies and scan your EDR. Wasn't so much of a loophole as it actually stated on woolworths site that this was allowed.

        • Neoika on 13/02/2016 - 16:53
          +4

          I think most people just use $10 off instead of converting to 870 QFF points.Due to the difficulty in accumulating Woolworths dollars,this is hardly worthing doing.

        • ozy on 13/02/2016 - 19:01
          +2

          @Neoika: was good as mentioned until recently when the $10/870QFF was introduced

      • ozy on 13/02/2016 - 18:59

        QFF points, should have mentioned that sorry

        • POWER1 on 14/02/2016 - 21:20
          +1

          I stopped scanning my everyday rewards card since they begging of this with no QFF Points. The new Woolworth system is bad, I used to save more money on the old one.

    • junior_thrift on 14/02/2016 - 13:54

      I stopped using my Commbank credit cards with PayPal once I realised CommBank was treating the transaction as a cash advance. Not sure if this is still the case…

      • bluedufflecoat on 15/02/2016 - 12:00
        +3

        I've got a CBA card now… don't think it's being treated as cash advance. In fact, so far - I've only used the card with paypal because I couldn't remember the PIN.

        • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 20:21

          If you login to net bank you can change the pin to whatever you want

        • bluedufflecoat on 16/02/2016 - 20:41

          @Agret: yeah, worked that out but still haven't used the cards since …

      • ajdlinux on 16/02/2016 - 22:34
        +2

        Never had that problem with my NAB, ANZ or Amex issued cards - that sounds very dodgy on the part of CommBank if true…

  • blingerz on 13/02/2016 - 10:31
    +19

    5-6 years ago, I signed a phone plan with one of the big three service providers when they were offering first three months for free. Got my phone bill and first month was NOT free. Rang up to complain and they adjusted it. But seems like they put it in multiple times or something because I got the subsequent next NINE months for free. Being a poor student at the time, I never told them, but I have stuck with them ever since out of guilt.

    • argonide on 13/02/2016 - 12:40
      +5

      I've had a similar thing, signed up with a plan offering 5 months at half price, also found a code for 3 months free. The first few bills were all negative amounts, and then after 6 months the three months free repeated.

    • blighst on 13/02/2016 - 20:18
      +3

      No need to feel guilty. It was there fault and it's not like they're losing money…

      Vodafone makes over A$4 billion in annual revenue
      Optus made A$764 million profit in 2013
      Telstra made A$4.3 billion profit in 2014

      It's more that they're screwing us.

      • BestofOZB on 14/02/2016 - 18:01
        +2

        Vodafone paid ZERO tax in 2014.
        Oh yeah and QANTS and Virgin too.
        And the the government was talking about GST!

        • ronnknee on 15/02/2016 - 13:20
          +2

          They couldn't get taxed when they weren't making money…

        • BestofOZB on 15/02/2016 - 17:02

          @ronnknee: and you really believe they were not making money!

        • ronnknee on 15/02/2016 - 19:34
          +3

          @BestofOZB: Well are you suggesting that they have been falsifying their earnings?

        • BestofOZB on 15/02/2016 - 22:03
          +1

          @ronnknee:

          Are you seriously asking?

          Clive Palmer "donated" millions from his business to his party before the said business go broke! What losing business has milliins in spare to donate? They ALL do it.

          If Vodafone, or any business, is not making money, they would not be doing business anymore!

        • ronnknee on 16/02/2016 - 09:06

          @BestofOZB:

          These businesses ain't your local mom-and-pop shops. They think long term and have a lot of capital/reserve to survive. It's not like they're gonna shut down because they've had a few bad years.

          Falsifying their earnings is illegal. If you have any solid evidence, I suggest that you go take it up to the authorities. The theory "the business is still alive therefore they didn't actually lose money and are evading tax" just doesn't buy it.

        • BestofOZB on 16/02/2016 - 09:33
          -2

          @ronnknee:I am sorry but you are too naiive.

        • ronnknee on 16/02/2016 - 10:08

          @BestofOZB: Funny, that's how I think of you as well; and it's "naive".

        • BestofOZB on 16/02/2016 - 12:08

          @ronnknee: you just proved my point

          http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=naiive

        • ronnknee on 16/02/2016 - 13:30

          @BestofOZB: Lol okay, I'm not sure how not knowing Urban Dictionary terms makes me "extra naive". More on the topic, I'm still also not sure what Clive Palmer has anything to do with Vodafone/Virgin/Qantas. If you think they are falsifying their earnings or evading taxes, go do something about it; otherwise you're just repeating misleading newspaper headlines.

        • BestofOZB on 16/02/2016 - 21:08
          -1

          @ronnknee:

          Smarty doesnt even get a joke.

          Naïve….OK happy now guardian of the English language? French I mean sorry.

          On a serious note though, big businesses do legal things to minimise their tax. Donations, "purchases", Australian based online busnisses opening a small headquarter in singapore or dubai to avoid/minimise taxes are just a few examples, other things the average person like me won't know (or not allowd to know).

          It's good that the gov finally started releasing paid taxed by big companies to get some publoc pressure.

          It's just not fair to attack hard working Australians qith GST when the super wealthy get away with billions, that was my point.

          Sorry if I came across offensive in any way.

    • ychen8 on 14/02/2016 - 10:35
      +2

      Don't feel guilty, the number of times that they say they will credit you but never do far exceed giving credit numerous times.

  • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 10:36
    -16

    Heres a few little known exploits - in winter, most office buildings and hotels have a stash of free umbrellas waiting for anyone to use near the entry - just take one whenever in need

    If you dont feel like walking, some company or govt body leaves unlocked bikes outside shopping centres, beaches, cafes etc - just grab one and leave it for someone else when you reach your destination - just like the umbrellas mentioned above, it works on an honour system that you wont actually keep it - use it and leave it for the next person

    • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 11:26
      +7

      Can't tell if serious… but I think that's stealing… or 'borrowing'.

      • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 11:29
        -7

        Its 'honour system' - you just gotta leave it for the next person once you reached your destination

        • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 12:05
          +4

          Still can't tell if serious.

          You're doing it without permission, and that umbrella, or bicycle, belongs to someone. Ya know??

        • GameChanger on 13/02/2016 - 20:41

          @inose: What if you brought it back next day in same spot?

        • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 20:58
          +2

          @GameChanger:

          Hmm… Yeah. No you're serious aren't you… You didn't grow up in Australia did you?

          Anyhow, this is normal convention: If it's not yours, you don't touch it without permission from its owner, even it's not being used.

          How would you like it if someone took your car without your permission?

        • GameChanger on 13/02/2016 - 21:21
          -1

          @inose: I have grown up here… Well if I left my keys in my car, it might be an invitation for others to use it?

        • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2016 - 11:12

          @inose: woosh

    • paaj on 23/02/2016 - 13:30

      Also Paramedics don't lock the Ambulance and leave the keys in ignition when they're out saving lives- you could just "borrow" the van and turn it into a tradie van or people mover.

      -end sarcasm.

  • djmatt24 on 13/02/2016 - 10:37
    +12

    Speaking of Amex, one of the best current loopholes would have to be buying gift cards using your Amex while taking advantage of the statement credits.

    And then using the self serve checkouts to use your gift cards to buy the gift cards you actually want.

  • felipe1982 on 13/02/2016 - 10:43
    +3

    2 years ago Wotif didn't allow you to get a hotel room with a credit card. But you could buy yourself a gift certificate with a credit card and then use it to get a hotel room. Saved a few hundred.

    • Pigey on 13/02/2016 - 11:15

      No hotel room with a credit card?

      You mean how to avoid the credit card fee?

    • spackbace on 13/02/2016 - 11:19
      +4

      Yep, that method let you avoid the credit card surcharge :)
      I remember posting that on here lol

      • FutureTech on 15/02/2016 - 00:09

        Yeah but if you decided to obtain a refund, typically that will come in the form of gift cards without the possibility to refund to your credit card, and then you're stuck with some gift card with limited validity and can only be used on this website.

  • Unbranded on 13/02/2016 - 10:55
    +188

    When cereal boxes advertise a 1 in 5 chance (or similar) of having a free toy or gadget inside the box, I just take some boxes around to the fruit and veg section of the supermarket and weigh the boxes on the scales. The heaviest box is guaranteed to have the free prize!

    • John on 13/02/2016 - 11:19
      +3

      Smart!

    • Diji1 on 13/02/2016 - 13:09
      +11

      OK that is genius :D

    • WannabeHermit on 14/02/2016 - 00:59
      +6

      Lol this is what my father does

    • POWER1 on 14/02/2016 - 21:22
      +30

      I did that so many times and remember once we got a box with no gift but an extra 100g of cereal.

      • paaj on 23/02/2016 - 13:31
        +2

        still a win! haha

    • TurkishDelight on 14/02/2016 - 22:03

      ok lad that's brilliant, have to admit.

    • harkoliar on 14/02/2016 - 23:20

      I gotta try this. Brilliant

    • Unbranded on 15/02/2016 - 10:14
      +1

      Works best with digital scales as the free pedometers and the like that Kellogg's often gives away only weigh 20 or 30 grams. Unfortunately Coles has replaced many of the digital scales so I find Woolies a better bet.

  • John on 13/02/2016 - 11:17
    +4

    Before I was with Optus, I regularly buy their $10 Hoyts voucher using my prepaid Optus number from 15 years ago (which I have not used for at least 10 years). They once found out and blocked my account. I just re-sign up with the same number but different email address. They never check your ID :) I'm sure you can do it still

    • b-t on 13/02/2016 - 23:12
      +3

      Does yours still work now? Actually I had been doing that too until they recently changed to "Optus Perks" and my number is now showing as "deactivated" and "You must have an active Optus service to use Optus Perks" :(

      I'm with Telstra now.

      • GeneralZod on 14/02/2016 - 02:02
        +2

        I did the same for 2 years lol. Recently got a new 2$ sim and activated optus perks, all good now :)

      • John on 15/02/2016 - 15:25
        +2

        Tried it and didn't work. They must have found the loophole. But as GeneralZod said, buy a $2 sim and you should be sorted :)

    • VeganJerky on 22/02/2016 - 19:34
      +1

      I didn't even have an Optus account and got the tickets. I looked at the sign up page and read how you need an optus email address in the format of [email protected], spent 5 mins googling for one and then had my very own rewards account a few mins later.

      Too bad they've fixed this now.

  • spackbace on 13/02/2016 - 11:20
    +18

    The 3 months free Netflix with Optus sign ups. Probably not really an exploit, but I bought 2 phones for $29 each, activated each and got 6 months Netflix, and sold each phone for $30 :)
    I think some people on here maxed it to like 2yrs!

    • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 11:28

      Nice one…i also think the presto and stan exploits deserve a mention - i got good value out of my presto "subscription" over the holidays

    • Japius on 13/02/2016 - 16:22

      Yes I ended up with 6 of those $15 ZTE phones just for the Netflix credit

      • Lichen6420 on 13/02/2016 - 22:51
        -3

        Yeah i had about 10 of them, kept all the chargers and binned them as i couldn't be bothered selling them. Good deal though…. 30 month USA Netflix subscription credit for $150 and a bunch of free phones and usb chargers.

        • Japius on 14/02/2016 - 00:06
          -2

          I only kept the cables as spares. Threw away everything else. No one wanted the phones. Actually took them to a Telstra store near my office expecting to be able to recycle them but they said they don't do that there. So they became landfill.

        • bluedufflecoat on 15/02/2016 - 12:12
          +2

          @Japius: recycle them at the zoo!

        • yacman on 16/02/2016 - 15:37

          @bluedufflecoat: I think I still have one of the Samsung ones, might throw it up in the forums for $20 if anyone is intrested

    • nickj on 15/02/2016 - 21:56
      +1

      Yeah I did this with 6 phones, and then sold all the phones as a single batch for cash via gumtree to someone who said they hated smartphones. Got back around 85% of what I paid, so nearly free netflix for 18 months, runs out end of 2016.

    • paaj on 23/02/2016 - 13:32

      I got 18 months out of that :) My folks live in Africa so I Ebay unlocked them and sent the phones to my folks. Phones there get stolen every few months.

  • Sertacv2 on 13/02/2016 - 11:26
    +3

    When nandos first released their loyalty program thingo. you could keep creating new accounts with a date of birth for the day. It then gave you a free meal for your birthday (which at the time you can get whatever you want. i got $50 worth) without showing your i.d. Yes you can see where this went.

    • massafiri on 13/02/2016 - 19:59
      +3

      Taking "lying about your age" to the next level.

    • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 16:05

      I actually cant? The employees got suspicious?

      • Sertacv2 on 15/02/2016 - 16:22

        Not all employees worked everyday. Plus you can go to any store.

  • truongster on 13/02/2016 - 11:47
    +6

    I got a $700 tablet of Telstra for $50 buy cancelling a month to month prepaid plan. Manager of the store informed all sales that it could happen and closed it within 6 days.

    • easternculture on 01/03/2016 - 20:02

      when was this?

      • truongster on 19/03/2016 - 22:14

        It was the Telstra Samsung Tab 10.5 deal on ozbargain. I read their terms and conditions and got it cheaper by further exploiting their loophole…

  • Need a dollar on 13/02/2016 - 11:53
    +6

    There was a promotion for TapKing, I didn't exploit it too much but I received about 20 codes for 2 pizzas, garlic bread delivered for free.
    I just kept creating new emails.

    Gave a few to mates, mostly just got pizza for family.

    • theguyrules on 15/02/2016 - 12:04
      +1

      Yeah, my mates and I got about 20 codes each. We just used the gmail trick where if you put a + in your email address, gmail ignores it but TapKing considered them new emails.
      It was actually for 1 pizza 2 Garlic Bread, which was a bit annoying. So much garlic bread.

      • Need a dollar on 15/02/2016 - 12:25
        +5

        Haha, so worth it. I wish I got more codes lmao.

        Catered my sisters b'day with those codes.

    • bargainbounty on 18/02/2016 - 14:56
      +1

      I remember this one, you could find a traditional pizza with lots of toppings take off all the cheap toppings and replace them with chicken and prawn, basically make super premium pizzas and get no surcharge as long as you were using the voucher. Good times

      • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 15:36

        That's not the promotion he's talking about.. but yes this is a good loophole too that no longer works anywhere near as well as it used to!

  • spackbace on 13/02/2016 - 11:56
    +9

    Actually my favourite - Subscribed to the weekend newspaper and got 2 tickets to Wicked (about $300 worth). Thing was, there was no restriction on how long the subscription had to be! Didn't get my first paper, rang and complained, then still didn't see any. Tickets came in the mail like a month later, rang to cancel the subscription, turned out there had been a stop notice put on it since the first week, oh and we need to refund you the payment we took 2 weeks in!

    TL;DR - 2 free tickets to Wicked worth $300 for 'not' subscribing to the weekend newspaper

    It's now a clause in all these subscriber deals that you have a minimum length subscription lol :)

    Here's the deal post :) (Did't even make the front page lol)

    • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 12:04
      +11

      This reminds me of the herald sun subscription where you got $50 rebelsport vouchers.

      That was a corker - my Family all got the vouchers for christmas that year. I spent nothing on anyone

      • spackbace on 13/02/2016 - 12:06

        Lol I think I remember that, digital subscription was fine :) But it took ages for the vouchers to come, so everyone got anxious

        • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 12:53
          +1

          Yes, i remember…it was terrible i had to wait a bit longer thanexpected for something that wasnt meant for me in the first place ;)

        • FutureTech on 15/02/2016 - 00:17

          OMG the good food one, I waited for like a month and the gift card didn't came, complained and waited for another 2 weeks, still didn't come, complained again and waited for 2 weeks, this time I did a chargeback on PayPal and they approved and refunded me the subscription fee. Two weeks later, you know what? Two gift cards were sent to my email. Treated myself to a high end restaurant.

      • johnno1987 on 14/02/2016 - 19:39
        +2

        Still the best deal ive ever posted! Hope one day I can beat it

  • tonka on 13/02/2016 - 12:06
    +6

    Supermarket $20 off $100 spend worked unlimited and on Visa gift cards a couple of years back. Also stacked with a couple other $5 off and staff discount.
    Purchase giftcard Visa for $105.95 less around $30, use giftcard Visa to purchase new giftcard Visa repeat.

    I gave up after a while ran out of room for the free groceries.

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:30

      Are your referring to statement credit offers from AMEX?
      And you're talking about those like prepaid EFTPOS cards? Either visa or MasterCard?

      • tonka on 17/02/2016 - 21:06

        Nope just what I said. Using supermarket discount coupons to purchase Visa gift cards.

        I still regularly get sent coupons for $20-25 off my grocery shop. The extra $5 coupons are harder to come by.

  • CodeXD on 13/02/2016 - 12:08
    +18

    Cadbury had a promotion where 1 in 7 chocolate bars can win you a chance of another free chocolate. There was a really easy way of looking for the barcode through the wrapping (non-winning wrappers didnt have a barcode). I bought 1 chocolate and was on a 30 free bar streak

    • nickj on 15/02/2016 - 22:00
      +1

      Yeah did this free chocolate loop until the lady at the counter said, "oh my goodness, you're so lucky! How do you do it?!" I just smiled and left before they got too suspicious…

  • krezii on 13/02/2016 - 12:13
    +3

    Was using the Hungry Jacks Always win app (fake version of HJ shake and win) to always get free double bacon deluxe. There are 4 HJ restaurants in the CBD so I would go do a run to all 4 in the morning then again at night with different workers so they don't catch on.
    I didnt eat much of it, I gave most of them away to either friends, family or the homeless.
    HJ stopped the shake and win app about a week ago though so it can't be used anymore.

    • QuickToThePointless on 13/02/2016 - 12:22
      +12

      Was wondering why there was so many fat homeless around town

    • cheesecactus on 13/02/2016 - 15:45
      +1

      HJ stopped the shake and win app about a week ago

      Oh no! It's finally over is it?

      Man it had been going for ages. Remembered using it on my iphone 4 many years ago. Then i had windows phones for 4 years. Now im planning to go to android soon and the app goes away lol

    • DarwinBoy on 13/02/2016 - 23:58

      Ha. I thought I used it Friday.

    • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 15:46
      +1

      I just tested the shake and win then. Are you saying they don't accept it anymore or the app has stopped working? I would have used the fake shake and win app but it never worked for me. I found another glitch with the actual app though. You clear the app data then use an app to change your device id (need a rooted device for this) then login to facebook again and you can shake again. just keep shaking till you get what you want.

      • krezii on 14/02/2016 - 17:28
        +2

        The manager didnt accept it and said you need to update your app because they dont do free prizes anymore.

        I think the new version doesnt let you shake and win anymore, instead it just says sign up your email for deals which pretty much just sends you a link to this https://hungryjacks.com.au/vouchers/

        • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 19:44

          Latest android version still lets me shake.

        • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 19:46

          Just called local HJ's store. they say they still accept it.

        • krezii on 15/02/2016 - 18:13
          +1

          @realfancyman:
          really? hmm must've been just the one store that didnt accept it, which store you did you rang?

        • realfancyman on 15/02/2016 - 18:54
          +1

          @krezii: Hungry Jack's Glen Osmond.

        • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 20:28

          What state are you in?

        • realfancyman on 16/02/2016 - 20:56

          @Agret: Didn't you look at the link I posted? SA.

        • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 22:19
          +1

          @realfancyman: Sorry that was a reply to krezii since he was saying his wasn't accepted, for some reason it didn't auto insert the @username thing when I hit reply to him though. I understand yours was accepted.

        • realfancyman on 17/02/2016 - 08:27

          @Agret: Ah OK. Apologies.

    • jacknthebeanstalk on 16/02/2016 - 06:23

      I did this too. Was on a pretty good run until one day at the drive thru. My encounter with the manager who served me was pretty awkward.

    • devnull73 on 16/02/2016 - 18:16
      +1

      Guy I know wrote his own app to mimic the hungry jacks app.

      He'd just select what he wanted, show it to the girl, she'd press "redeem" and give him his food.

      • realfancyman on 16/02/2016 - 20:57
        +1

        would you mind posting a link? i've got a system where you can get unlimited shakes but it's a bit hard this sounds way better.

        • devnull73 on 19/02/2016 - 14:16

          I dont think it ever escaped to the wild, and I think the shake app thing is all done now anyway?

        • realfancyman on 19/02/2016 - 16:42

          @devnull73: Nope.

        • jdogg on 24/02/2016 - 00:41

          Do you mind telling me the process and the app you use? I have a rooted android phone and I change device id and clear app data but it still said's ive used the shake for that day?

        • illumination on 24/02/2016 - 09:36

          @jdogg: I'm curious too!

        • realfancyman on 24/02/2016 - 18:36

          @jdogg: Hmmm, wonder whats happening. try force closing the hj's app then clearing data then changing android id. the android id changer app i use seems to have been taken off the google play store. heres the apk https://dl2.pushbulletusercontent.com/uR38tCe70NWfaT79Jxik0K…

        • jdogg on 24/02/2016 - 23:11

          @realfancyman:
          Thanks man but it still didn't work. Even tried it on another fb account too.

      • Agret on 24/02/2016 - 18:53
        +1

        Friends and me did the software dev way and tore apart their APK in a program called Virtuous Ten Studio and remapped part of the app to open the internal debug menu which let you just pick whatever prize you wanted.

        • realfancyman on 25/02/2016 - 08:48

          @Agret could you post the modified apk?

        • Agret on 25/02/2016 - 11:39

          @realfancyman:

          The hack we did a few years ago so the app is quite outdated and doesn't support lollipop or marshmallow. Only works properly on gingerbread I believe. Sorry I can't really help, maybe we can take another attempt at it.

  • pebee47 on 13/02/2016 - 12:20
    +1

    Using Woolworths rewards card to get Qantas points + pay with Q cash card for more points. Simple, easy. Not hugely rewarding but was worth 8000 points over 2 years - and I'm a single male without a huge appetite.

  • spackbace on 13/02/2016 - 12:21
    +2

    This competition plus temporary email addresses… Made Christmas a bit easier that year :)

  • RyJMc on 13/02/2016 - 12:34
    -33

    Not sure if this counts but here goes!

    Sign up for 2 x PayPal accounts.
    Verify card and make a few purchases on first account.
    Send funds for "good or services" from the first account to the second.
    Withdraw funds immediately from first account and close account.
    Make claim for undelivered item on 2nd account and wait for refund.
    Withdraw refund.
    Free moneys at the expense of PayPal.

    • figarow on 13/02/2016 - 15:52
      +37

      I think that is called fraud.

    • chipstss on 13/02/2016 - 19:38
      +10

      lmao, you just admitted to fraud.

    • Rodgort on 16/02/2016 - 14:32

      That's very easily tracked by them. You could be in for a world of hurt if you keep doing that.

  • Forskin on 13/02/2016 - 12:39
    +2

    CloudAtCost had a couple exploits which allowed me to gain an unlimited amount of VPS resources (could create multiple vps's with 64GB Ram each. Was fun while it lasted.

  • theoofside on 13/02/2016 - 13:04
    +9

    The Qantas website/booking system has a glitch right now that detects credit cards (not sure if all or just mine) as debit cards so only charging a $10 fee instead of $30. So I've been using CC over POLi for all my purchases (for all the rewards points, insurance etc).

  • peznoodle on 13/02/2016 - 13:10
    +6

    The automatic ticket buying machines on trains used to give tickets out after you had pressed the refund button - so put $3 in to buy a $2.80 ticket, get refund, press for ticket and the ticket would come as well as your money back.

    • ronnknee on 15/02/2016 - 13:37

      Which state was this?

      • peznoodle on 19/02/2016 - 13:21

        this was in South Australia before they changed to the new cards they use.. you could also put sticky tape over a multitrip and it would print the trips on there, once you used your 10 trips run a magnet over the back and take it back to the ticket office to say it's not working. They gave the choice of replacement ticket or refund

  • T-man on 13/02/2016 - 13:14
    +3

    In Queesnland, I used Gold Card for public transport. If you just tap on and don't tap off, you will be charged a maximum of $2. Some trips cost more than $2, so I just tap on and don't tap off. Now they increase the maximum charge to $5, the loophole fixed.

    • mataeka on 18/02/2016 - 13:49
      +1

      It's actually $10 for a not tap off (probably adult fare vs concession) still costs more than $10 to travel from Brisbane to the sunshine coast… Thats probably my only loophole.

      • T-man on 18/02/2016 - 14:09

        Really I have not been using public transport for a while since Translink has been privatised and they increase the fares every year, it's a rip off.

        • ronnknee on 19/02/2016 - 13:23

          Well Sydney Trains is still government-owned and they still have ridiculous price increases annually.

  • Randxyz123 on 13/02/2016 - 13:23
    +34

    Not sure how much of a loophole this is but you can read The Age in private browsing mode for free and it doesn't count how many articles you read per month

    • first in line on 15/02/2016 - 22:54
      +3

      thought everyone knew that

  • JIMB0 on 13/02/2016 - 13:24
    +12

    Back in 2000 I got a hold of an Optus internet signup CD. Put it in the computer and it used the modem to dial into the Optus network so you can enter your details to signup for dialup internet. It only let you go on the Optus website, however if you added the the Optus proxy server settings to your browser you had free unlimited internet access. Lasted for quite some time before they caught on.

    • jelko on 14/02/2016 - 17:09

      Back in the late 90's, you could create a Bigpond dial-up internet account with any valid credit card number (you could download credit card generators). It would work for a couple of months and then stop. Then I created another account and so on…

      • CVonC on 14/02/2016 - 22:02
        +2

        i remember using Freenet dialup and using some program to minimise the ad banner as well as another program to keep the mouse moving so that it doesn't get disconnected ^_^

  • upsydaisy on 13/02/2016 - 13:57
    +22

    The undercover parking at our local hospital was $40 per day. We were parked for 28 hours and got a charge of $80.
    The fee for a lost ticket was $50. No surprise that we accidently lost our ticket.

    • Gotchas on 13/02/2016 - 14:03
      +12

      Not as good as tailgating car in front out of the boom gates

      • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 16:13
        +6

        Broke a Boom gate once when the car in front was doing the exact same thing and I was too balls deep to stop.

        Not even joking, freaked me out for months wondering if I was ever going to get a bill to fix it.
        But it turns out they don't have cameras and the boom gate comes off easily and they just slid the plastic thing back on.

    • Food on 13/02/2016 - 14:26
      +1

      Same but the daily fee was dearer than the lost ticket, that lasted a while (sadly albeit in sad circumstances)

  • Food on 13/02/2016 - 14:27
    +1

    An online fan store had a $20 off coupon with no min spend, a few orders were placed and received then (until they plugged it) :(

  • rldowling03 on 13/02/2016 - 14:36
    +19

    Back in like 2004ish Vodafone had a 'loophole' where you could use internet on your mobile phone (GPRS back in those days) forever after your credit reached $0 on prepaid. Needless to say as a young high school student I was always out of credit with unlimited internet access on my phone.

    Another similar 'loophole' was with 3 in about 2005-2006 was you would be able to use your emails of the service for free without any charge to your credit or data allowance, so I created a program which communicated with me via my 3 email to send myself emails of downloads so I could download anything on the internet for free through my free 3 email.

    They're small things, but for a young me were absolutely amazing :)

  • snivy on 13/02/2016 - 14:39
    +2

    A lot seems to be transport related.

    Some years ago when Melbourne tram used paper tickets, there was this ticket you can use within city boundary for one-way trip (I can't remember its name), a lot of the trams traveling across the boundary wasn't programmed to accept the ticket because they're coming from out of the city. I got a lot of free travels because of that, got caught once but they couldn't do anything because I was within the area which the ticket specified.

  • Clear on 13/02/2016 - 14:58
    +5

    Back in 2005 I was able to send text messages for free from my Telstra 2G simcard on a Motorola flip phone. When I had no credit I'd repeatedly press send and after about 3-10 tries the message would go through. Stopped working about a year later and I have no idea how it happened.

    • Clear on 13/02/2016 - 17:06
      +1

      And in 07' I could get paid channels on my phone for free like Foxtel, Channel V, Fox, Disney etc without using any data. Basically once you paid for a channel you were given a URL starting with rtsp:// and clicking on it would show the content. I learnt that you only needed to change the channel name in the URL to see the other channels. The downside was that new content was weekly and not daily.

      Someone posted it online 6 years ago too.

  • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 15:05
    +7

    Note 3s didn't have water indicator stickers when first brought out… dropped mine into a creek. Got a brand newie, all it cost me was lying to a large, evil, faceless corporation; I feel such guilt.

    • djprima on 14/02/2016 - 08:00
      +4

      This is fraud:
      You could use bleach to turn that red indicator back to white. Just make sure do it both to the battery and the one hidden inside the handset

  • timbo83 on 13/02/2016 - 15:13
    +2

    Event cinemas, purchasing the 'additional adult' tickets that are only meant to stack on a family (2 adults, 2 kids) ticket.

    Not sure when that loophole closed, but I used it a number of times thinking surely they will catch on.

  • iBuzz7S on 13/02/2016 - 15:20
    +4

    Optus pre-paid free SMS. Sometimes it worked, sometimes they'd catch on and your balance would be wiped in an instant. All you had to do was change the message centre number from your message settings.

    This was early to mid 00s.

    • baybaboy on 15/02/2016 - 19:12

      the loophole still works lol :)

    • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 23:13

      Change it to what though?

      • iBuzz7S on 22/02/2016 - 15:08

        I can't remember what the number was, sorry. I'm sure it was identical to the original number, maybe 3 or 4 digits were different.

  • mmd on 13/02/2016 - 15:31
    +5

    Subway stamps in the mid 2000s.
    There was subway stamp cards before the current subway club membership.
    If u buy a footlong, u get 2 stamps.
    10 stamps would allow you to get a free footlong.
    Anyways, people (presumably Subway employees) were selling the stamps on eBay.
    I can't remember how much they were selling it for. I vaguely remember working it out that a stamp cost 20/30cents, so a footlong would have cost $3 at the most.
    Everyone (employees, customers) won except for the franchisee owners.

    • The General on 14/02/2016 - 11:12
      +3

      They stopped using the stamp system in the U.S. So all the Subway franchise owners had boxes and boxes of stamps out the back. It was them that was selling them to Australian buyer.

      U.S. Franchisee's ripping off Oz Franchisee's effectively.

  • wonderboy on 13/02/2016 - 16:10
    +9

    Recently was the 7/11 app that gave you a free Krispy Kreme doughnut when you sign up. It didn't even require you to confirm the email so it took 2 seconds to make a new account and get a free doughnut.

    Best one was the buying 3 games for $15-$20 and doing the 3-for-1 trade deal for a new game at JB and trading the new game to EB for $80-100+. Then I found out that you can return preordered games that was paid with trade in credit for cash. Made a lot of money from that.

    • Merlict on 13/02/2016 - 17:17
      +6

      Oh man those JB trade in deals were solid gold. As a pov student it kept me in new release games for years.

      When it was brand new there was no exclusion list at all and I bought 15 copies of some crap old soccer game for $5 each. It was pretty obvious to the checkout dudes that their store was getting hosed on the trades but they didn't really care.

  • oztite on 13/02/2016 - 16:19
    +3

    Back in 2007 for 1 year I could use a zero dollar balance VISA debit card at any Wilson's carpark machine to pay for any ticket for any price… for free…

    • JIMB0 on 13/02/2016 - 20:54
      +2

      Wouldn't that put your card into negative so the next time you put money on it would be gone straight away?

      • realfancyman on 16/02/2016 - 21:02
        +1

        you could just use a prepaid mastercard from coles or similar and throw it away when your done.

        • ronnknee on 16/02/2016 - 23:20

          So does this still work?

        • JIMB0 on 05/03/2016 - 14:15

          @ronnknee: I tried at my local shopping center car park (not Wilson) with a prepaid Coles Mastercard, it was denied due to zero balance. Tried an old credit card and it picked up that it was expired.

  • stirlo on 13/02/2016 - 17:27
    +18

    I parked in a Wilson car park when I lived in the CBD for around 6 months just using a prepaid ($10) exit ticket whenever I wanted to use my car (only the occasional weekend) as I walked to work. Then one day I got a call from the cops who thought my car had been stolen as they realised it had been left in the same car park for 3 weeks. The car park was $18 per hour so paying $10 every few weeks was awesome.

    • FutureTech on 15/02/2016 - 00:30
      +4

      I'm actually glad that cops are on top of these stuff

      • WT on 04/03/2016 - 14:32

        I would have been a staff member or someone who noticed your dusty car always there.

        You can call the cops if you think its dumped/stolen and they can access the contact number and call the owner.

  • Baebs on 13/02/2016 - 17:40
    +5

    Not really a loophole but, ages ago got $400 cotd credit by introducing a forum to the $10 referral during the steam game sale.

  • xordis on 13/02/2016 - 18:25
    +11

    Not sure who can exploit this loophole, but it works with the uni I went to.

    About 15 years ago I thought I might do a Masters degree.
    I already had an grad degree from this place, so it made sense for me to apply there and do my masters.
    Well I applied, got accepted (as you do when it's full fee paying) and started looking into classes.
    Anyway around that time I also got a social life, so uni all of a sudden wasn't an attractive thing. Uni (when I didn't need a degree or drinking)
    So anyway you can withdraw from your uni course anywhere up to like 8 weeks into the semester, so I did.
    At the time (along with the new social life), it was also in doubt if work would pay for the course, so it wasn't worth the risk I thought.

    Anyway, before I cancelled my course, they had already sent out my student ID with 5 year validity on it.
    I got FT student discount from everywhere for the next 5 years.

    Some big wins.

    Melbourne F1 - half price tickets
    Skiing in NZ - half price lift tickets.
    Discounted movies.

    I didn't catch public transport so there was no win there.

    • cantanga on 14/02/2016 - 20:44
      +1

      I have a similar one. The uni I went to didn't put expiry dates (or any dates to identify age of card) on the student card. Can't use it on NSW transport because I don't have the sticker but I still am able to use it occasionally for other student deals. Until I no longer look like the photo I'll be able to use it. Because it isn't a local uni no one knows if it's current or not, or they just don't care.

      Also I was one of the last year of students to get given one of the uni email adresses, which while I can't access directly anymore I had set up to forward everything to my regular email account. Turns out it's still active so I can get student prices on pretty much any software that offers student discounts as I have a .edu account

      • matthado on 16/02/2016 - 12:18
        +2

        If you still have your ID and if you somehow can get a Opal Concession card for students you can use it on NSW Transport. You don't actually need to have a concession sticker on your ID when using the Opal network. You only need to show your student ID to a transport officer if they ask.

        If however you were to purchase a paper ticket than you need the concession sticker.

    • Tejas57 on 15/02/2016 - 14:29
      +2

      my uni allows you to specify the date of graduation. people in there final semester were "losing" id cards and getting ones with 5 year validity on them

  • plexor on 13/02/2016 - 18:50
    +3

    Subway birthday club deal - Signed up multiple times using variations of my gmail address (just moved the dot around). Set my "birthday" to the day I wanted free Subway. Never had to show ID.

    • T-man on 13/02/2016 - 20:22

      same with Boost Juice, just download their app and set it today is your birthday to get a free drink.

      • markj on 14/02/2016 - 10:21

        Do they not check your ID only at some Boost Juice's or at all of them?

        • T-man on 14/02/2016 - 10:30
          +3

          They never bother to check your ID and always say 'Happy Birthday'

        • TheOneWhoKnocks on 16/02/2016 - 20:12

          @divious: Haha.

      • tinx on 14/02/2016 - 20:39

        does it works straight away?

        • T-man on 14/02/2016 - 21:11

          Yes, but you have to re-download the app to set your birthday.

        • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 23:17

          @divious: just long press it in your app drawer and then drag it up to app info and then press clear data and that will save you re-downloading it (On Android anyway)

        • T-man on 16/02/2016 - 23:21

          @Agret:

          I use iPhone and I have to del and re-download the app. Thanks for the tip anyway.

    • Becsavers on 14/02/2016 - 00:45

      None of the staff members at Subway knew that the birthday sub voucher was meant to be activated when used. I used the same voucher 5 times.

    • Neoika on 14/02/2016 - 10:08

      It depends on who you are dealing with.Some stores do check ID.One even checked my ID after the Sub being made so that they probably could charge me if I could not present an ID.

    • tinx on 14/02/2016 - 20:40

      the one at chadstone shopping center always check id …

  • retiredfeline on 13/02/2016 - 19:22
    +2

    Event cinemas once hired a bad programmer who put all the discount code comparison inside the Javascript on the page. Somebody browsed the source code for the page and noticed this and posted on OzBargain how to trigger the discount (the post is in the archives, I'm too lazy to search). I bought a cheap ticket before they closed it down.

  • ChickenTalon on 13/02/2016 - 19:29
    +7

    Friend had 4 years worth of top level FOXTEL for free. He got it installed and there must have been some glitch with the account, no bills were ever received.

    He was afraid to even change the channel too much! I think it also factored in his decision not to move house earlier than he did. Eventually it stopped working one day. He didn't bother calling for fear of receiving the bills, just moved to streaming.

    • GameChanger on 13/02/2016 - 19:57
      +2

      This reminds me of my glitch!

      I received foxtel pay per view for free for 2 years, never had to rent a movie.

  • belongsinforums on 13/02/2016 - 20:08
    +18

    I see workers quite regularly take two supermarket trolleys, and roll them over the sensor at a parking gate to get a 2nd parking ticket at the end of the day, and use that to get a day's free parking. Pretty simple. Can't believe they haven't been stopped yet

    • Mysterious Laptop on 15/02/2016 - 10:39
      +1

      Hahaha I see this too. I never care and actually wouldn't want them to be stopped, they're there to work and not shop anyway.. so they deserve a place to park.

      • georgedn on 15/02/2016 - 14:53

        When I worked at Westfields years ago we used to do this by walking past the sensor. That lasted for months. Then one day they changed the settings, so we starting pushing the big bins past the sensor. That lasted a few months. Then they eventually changed the settings again so that you actually needed to drive a car over the sensor.

  • [Deactivated] on 13/02/2016 - 20:26
    +8

    You used to be able to stick a McDonalds straw into a Telstra Payphone coin refund tray through the top of the lid and trigger a refund of your coin and the credit remained.

    Unlimited free phone calls.

    • DarwinBoy on 14/02/2016 - 00:04
      +2

      I was waiting to see if anyone else was going to post this one. Made heaps of calls from the Uni accomodation this way for months.

    • T-man on 14/02/2016 - 01:52
      +2

      Really people still using coin telephone stations these days?

    • xdiep on 14/02/2016 - 06:10
      +19

      … or calling 013, and making a reverse charge phone call, then when the machine prompts you for your name you have about 1.5 seconds to yell out "pick me up train st…."

      Then on the other end they'll hear the message and decline the reverse charge.

      • [Deactivated] on 14/02/2016 - 09:50

        I've done that too !

      • Ashy Larry on 16/02/2016 - 17:38
        +1

        When I was a kid you could get that couple of seconds just by dialing the person's number(b4 mobiles). I also used to call 1800reverse from my cell and Dad would know to hang up n call me back. Should be able to still do that one.

      • Agret on 16/02/2016 - 23:39
        +1

        I used to do that with my mum but my dad never really understood it and always accepted the charges sigh

    • belongsinforums on 14/02/2016 - 22:23
      +2

      Heh, sorta related: Hold down asterisk, then pick up the phone. Keep holding asterisk until the screen comes up with an error, then put the phone back down. Makes it look out of order.

    • devnull73 on 16/02/2016 - 18:27

      The other ones were "clicking" the old green phones, or the 199 trick (needed a tone dialer) for a more modern model that was around.

  • altomic on 13/02/2016 - 20:52
    +13

    In Germany (before the Euro) a Deutsch mark was about $1 but the exact same size as a 10cent piece. Took $50 in 10cents and used them in vending machines and for public transport.

    • defined on 15/02/2016 - 12:22
      +1

      LOL - classic! I would of loved to see the look on the faces of the employee who counted the coins afterwards.

      • kiwibayer on 18/02/2016 - 19:45
        +2

        my dad used to work for one of the cigarette vending machines companies in Germany and regularly had to empty the till…. he saw heaps of currency from different countries. Mainly other European countries though …

  • codyvan1 on 13/02/2016 - 21:12
    +9

    A few years ago, I was at Crown Galactic Circus (melb) when I had to go get some change at one of these coin dispenser machines. I put in a $20 note, and ding ding ding were the $1 coins. Realising that the machine gave me more than $20 worth of coins (about $30), I went back and tried with a $10 note and got about $15. I went to an atm, cashed out $200 and got back approximately $300 worth of coins. My pockets were so heavy and I played a few of the games and won some prizes just to not look dodgy. Best night after losing a few hundred at the casino.
    Went back the following week and the coin dispensing machine was fixed.

    • jelko on 14/02/2016 - 17:15
      +5

      When I was a kid I put in $2 into a Timezone cash machine. The change would come out and also the original $2. I was tempted to exploit it but didn't.

      • hahaboy on 15/02/2016 - 23:06
        -2

        a kid with morals….how naive :p

  • Ghogger on 13/02/2016 - 21:45
    +25

    I used to ride my motorbike across the Sydney harbour bridge fairly regularly, and I had assigned the number plate to my toll account but to my surprise I never got charged.

    It was only a few months after getting my motorbike that when visiting my parents, my dad mentioned 'you should probably adjust the bag on the back of your bike, it makes it hard to see the number plate'

    You can imagine that no bag adjustment was made.. Went through at least 100 tolls with that bike - bridge, M2, M7, the harbour tunnel, never got charged. That bag was the best investment I ever made.

    • hahaboy on 15/02/2016 - 23:07

      what do you mean? was the number plate on your bag, and if so, can't cops pull you over and fine you for it?

      • Ghogger on 15/02/2016 - 23:20
        +1

        The bag covered the numberplate since it hung a little lower than it was designed to (called a ventura bag rack if you're interested)

        • hahaboy on 16/02/2016 - 22:46

          sweet. thanks :)

    • Ashy Larry on 16/02/2016 - 17:42

      Probably explains why there are about 15 cameras clustered at the toll recognition part on the gateway.

    • WT on 04/03/2016 - 14:46

      My riding buddies all had flip plates, just reach around and flip it when needed. It was handy for these occasions, but not the real reason why we had them.

  • lousy on 13/02/2016 - 22:23
    +3

    This is something that someone with a lot of time would appreciate. Buy a movie ticket. The ticket is checked at the main entrance. After the first movie slip into another session down the hall. Movie marathon. I know this doesn't really count as a loophole.

    • Euphemistic on 21/02/2016 - 12:00

      Now at our local they check tickets as you enter the theatre, not just the hallway. Loophole closed, probably doesn't stop you from entering after the movie starts though.

  • sakinah on 13/02/2016 - 23:08
    +2

    Once I churned to a certain ISP and had working adsl with them after few days but wasn't getting charged. After 12 months I got the email that said congratulations you have been connected then I started getting charged. So basically free adsl for a year

  • goms on 13/02/2016 - 23:33
    +2

    10 years ago or so, changing the message centre number will give you free sms including overseas. Was fun while it lasts.

    • xordis on 15/02/2016 - 00:30
      +1

      10 years? More like 20 years ago.
      I remember doing this in 96.
      We had an SMSS in South Africa that didn't charge for SMS's and let you send to any carrier in the world.
      First win was intercarrier SMS's. Back then believe it or not you couldn't SMS Telstra -> Optus/Vodafone(not sure if they were around even). So that was huge.
      Second was you didn't get charged.

      I had years of free sms's

      • goms on 15/02/2016 - 21:17

        Thinking about it, it was around 2001 when I was in high school. So yeah its about 15 years ago. My mate used to spam me with sms-es and I was using the old nokia phone (5110 I think?) which can only hold few sms-es. Had to delete them all, it was annoying as hell lol.

  • Methd on 14/02/2016 - 00:18
    -1

    About 20 years ago I needed some money so I decided to sell a gold necklace that my parents had given me. Walked into cash converters and they checked the stamping to indicate the gold %, weighed it and offered me a $ value. It was shit but I took it.

    It then sparked an idea - I then went and bought some silver necklaces and then proceeded to cut the end tag/clip off and solder in a real gold one with the gold stamping on it. I'd then gold plate the necklace a few times so it was clean and looked like real gold. Walked into cash converters and just said I have some jewellery but I had no idea what it really was. The plan worked, they looked for the stamp and gave me the gold value of the necklace! I did that about a second time straight away as I was scared they would catch on as we needed to supply ID. Made a few grand for a poor student at the time and never heard from them.

    • [Deactivated] on 14/02/2016 - 10:46
      +3

      so you deliberately rorted cashies knowing what you did was fraudlent
      even provided ID

      sounds like a good case for their head office to investigate

      • Methd on 14/02/2016 - 20:51

        It's not a rort when I made no claims as to what it was. I merely presented the item as is and asked how much they'd give me. If they're buying then it's buyer beware. I'm aware they now test the gold before they buy.

    • ibfragalot on 14/02/2016 - 15:18
      +4

      Fraud, but actually quite clever of you! Gold plating, etc. Nice!

  • centrelink on 14/02/2016 - 00:46
    -7

    Herp a derp derp I used to live in a studio and it provided free water. I used the stream of water from the tap to create kinetic energy to power my laptop use use he light sparingly.

  • altomic on 14/02/2016 - 05:57
    +5

    Years ago when Melbourne had scratchie tickets the kids at my school would carefully cut out the scratched date of a used ticket and replace it with the unscratched date from another ticket. Then whilst on the train have the ticket in hand and if I inspectors entered the carriage would then scratch that days date.

    Before scratch tickets they had paper tickets with the day and month hole punched out - but no year. every friday for a year I'd get the train home from school and search the used ticket bin and find the all day tickets for each day of the week. I kept them in order and the following 2 years i recycled them.

    • Wallyt99 on 15/02/2016 - 23:27

      In Melbourne there was something similar. I think we used to cover parts of the ticket with our thumb and punch multiple times. :)

  • R3XNebular on 14/02/2016 - 06:13
    +2

    Lost my student ID just before I graduated. Got a replacement effective for another three years after I graduated. Still bought student priced transport and student price cinema tickets.

    • T-man on 14/02/2016 - 10:40
      +2

      my sharemate she is working at student administration and I can always ask her to renew my card. Before the graduation I asked her to replace my student card, now I can use it until 2018 ;)

    • [Deactivated] on 14/02/2016 - 10:44
      -10

      people like you ruin it for everyone
      hope you get caught out one day deliberately rorting the system

    • nanonoise on 16/02/2016 - 19:03
      +1

      I had a student ID card, no expiry date and the photo was so dark it was hard to make out the person. I and many mates used it for student discounts many years after I finished studying.

  • xdiep on 14/02/2016 - 06:22
    +31

    In Melbourne, from Swan street to get to Exhibition st, you typically have to pay the Citylink tolls. i.e. https://goo.gl/maps/xQNYWFwZ8on

    However, by entering the Rod Laver arena car park, as long as you leave within 10 mins, you can get out for free and avoid the toll completely https://goo.gl/maps/kwGZaXPHcHM2

  • xdiep on 14/02/2016 - 06:31
    +10

    Optus had 'yes' time. Free calls up to 20 mins optus to optus between 8pm to 12am.

    Loophole 1: if your phone call lasts 19min30, you can hang up and call again for another free 20 mins.

    Loophole 2: if you make a phone call at 11.59pm, then you can get another 20mins free even until 12:18am when technically it should've expired at midnight.

    All you needed was an optus prepaid sim card with enough credit for a 30sec phone call to take advantage of loopholes 1 & 2.

    • bobbified on 14/02/2016 - 11:33
      +1

      don't know why this was negg'd… everyone knew about this and was doing the same thing.
      I'm pretty sure even optus was aware of this and didn't mind so much because they had a fair use policy ad could've terminated anyone that they thought was abusing their Yes time.

    • aboabo on 14/02/2016 - 13:05
      +2

      Optus said YES so how could they say NO?

    • gstfree on 15/02/2016 - 07:29

      Yes weekend also.

      • treeman on 15/02/2016 - 22:50
        +1

        Yes used this. Optus didn't care. I think they had 2000 minutes fair use.

        I once went over but got a warning from memory.
        They would have made a fair bit of money with people going accidentally over but I was always very careful.

    • koplik8 on 02/03/2016 - 05:00
      +1

      I used to do that all the time too.
      I remember the night of 9/11 I was on the phone hanging up every 20 minutes

    • WT on 04/03/2016 - 14:53

      My gf at the time did this, I eventually got pissed off with her having to call back every 20 mins

      • CVonC on 04/03/2016 - 14:57

        reason for breakup then?

  • aliocroc on 14/02/2016 - 06:45
    +3

    With my telstra broadband. We are in an area of fibre optic connection (lucky us!) Signing up was looking pricey with costs for connection and the special router you need for fibre. I was on a $50 plan, The telstra guy told me if I signed up to the $100 plan I got connection and the $100 router for free, then directly afterwards I could use the "30 days free change of mind" part of the service to jump back down to my $50 plan! Saved me about $110.

  • nimnomnimy on 14/02/2016 - 07:51
    +1

    Had a Pizza Hut coupon for years for $7 pizza, garlic bread and 1.25lt Coke. It was worth about that

  • Razor1919 on 14/02/2016 - 08:39
    +3

    Sydney Opal Card Hack. Usual weekly spend was $52 on train fare (Long Commute). Wake Monday morning 5am and cycle between two train stations which would take abit under an hr.

    Trip A to B x 6 trips is $2.36 x 6 = $14.16
    Catch train into work for the 7th trip and hit the daily $15 cap. Trip home would be free instead of $6.46
    Next Day go out for morning ride before 7am (peak) and do another trip $2.36
    Total spend on 8 trips = $15 + $2.36 with the rest of the week free after eight paid trips. Looks like its going to be removed now. Apparently its really easy to glitch on the cbd tram network and has been overused/abused.

    • Neoika on 14/02/2016 - 10:11

      Opal hack probably will end in June.

  • SteveBuscemi on 14/02/2016 - 09:25
    +14

    Way back in 2005 Amazon started their "Mechanical Turk" service which is basically a digital sweatshop platform and still in operation. You might get paid 30c to write ad copy for a product, 5c to categorise a photo etc.

    Amazon were the only publisher of tasks at that time. They'd give you a business name and address, show you five StreetView-esque photos, and if you could clearly see the business you clicked on the photo, clicked Submit, and if accepted you got 3 cents. (Cash as a US resident, Amazon credit otherwise).

    A few online forums picked it up and wrote browser scripts to make it easier, such as autosubmitting as soon as you clicked the photo rather than having to scroll down to submit, but as I kept clicking on them to gain a few bucks, I realised that 'None of the above' was the answer a good 70 percent of the time.

    …so I hacked a script together to just spam the 'None of the above' button, and occasionally take a break/randomise the submit time so it didn't look obvious.

    Went off to Uni, left it running for days. My acceptance ratio went way down, but the net result was ~US$900 of Amazon credit (at ~73c exchange rate at the time). Needless to say, as a poor Uni student yet to start full time employment, Christmas was good that year.

    The one thing I agonised about was whether it was worth getting a US-model Xbox 360 without warranty, and in hindsight with RRoD, getting a PSP instead was a good choice.

  • phluffed on 14/02/2016 - 09:45
    +5

    Back at the dawn of time before streaming and torrents, Video Ezy and Blockbuster used to do the "get it first time or get it free" deal. New movies went up on a Thursday, so I'd stop in after work (10pm) and if any of the new releases were all out I'd simple go to the counter and get my free voucher. The guy who worked there knew what I was doing when I told him I really wanted to borrow Six Days Seven Nights, Truman Show and Dr Dolittle on the same night. He didn't care, and thus "Free Movie Friday" was born!

    • Skinnerr on 16/02/2016 - 08:44
      +1

      Lol, wasnt this in the reddit post?

      • phluffed on 16/02/2016 - 22:43
        +1

        Redit post?

        Was a common thing to do in Sydney at the time, especially when DVD's became the norm.

        • Skinnerr on 17/02/2016 - 06:41

          in the OP, what you described someone did the exact same thing. Must be common I guess.

        • phluffed on 17/02/2016 - 08:27

          @thedude23:
          Ahh I see that now.. don't think it was there when originally posted. You have no idea how common it was! Some stores would give you "credit" instead of the correct voucher, which you could use on a 7day game hire.

  • p1 ama on 14/02/2016 - 10:01
    +10

    The drinks in the fridge of most supermarkets tend to be more expensive, so I used to take a drink, put it in the freezer with the chips and frozen veggies or something and grab it when I was done with my shopping, ice cold 2L of coke for less than what they charge for 600mL in the fridge.

    • T-man on 14/02/2016 - 10:45
      +2

      Really can you do that? Do the staff look at you suspiciously

      • p1 ama on 15/02/2016 - 19:20

        There aren't usually all that many staff just walking around in the freezer section, to be honest.

    • bobbified on 14/02/2016 - 11:36

      oh wow… I didn't know they charged different prices.. does that mean that they had different barcodes?

      what if someone moved a refridgerated one to the normal shelf and some unsuspecting buyer was paying more without even knowing?

      • Guybrush57 on 14/02/2016 - 12:30
        +6

        He is talking about the difference between 2L and 600mL Coke bottles. 2L could be on special for $2 whereas 600mL would be upwards of $4.

        • bobbified on 14/02/2016 - 16:07

          my bad… thanks for that. I mustn't have read the last bit properly!

      • xordis on 15/02/2016 - 00:40
        +2

        You will find the drinks in the fridges aren't available warm on the shelves (usually).

        We did a similar thing when working at Coles as well.
        About 30 minutes before break, you would grab a 1.25L of whatever and go put it in the freezer out the back.
        There would often be 3-4-5 bottles sitting up on the chiller unit just before lunch from the guys filling shelves.

        <$1 ice cold (slushie cold) drinks and usually we would time our lunch breaks with the $2 dozen fresh cinnamon donuts (which ended up being more like 18-20 cause we knew the guys in the bakery)
        Oh to be back in my 20's, powered by sugar, getting paid decent casual rates (great at the time for us "poor" uni students getting $20/hr) and still staying fit and skinny cause we ran around packing shelves and lifting boxes all day.

    • CandyMan on 14/02/2016 - 12:41
      +1

      I reckon the coolest place would be the ice fridge

    • aboabo on 14/02/2016 - 13:11
      +19

      I used to purchase the half chilled 2L cokes that other shoppers had earlier put in the freezer.

    • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 15:37

      I still do this. Put it with the milk though, blends in better there.

    • smpantsonfire on 14/02/2016 - 17:26
      +1

      Go to the bottlo attached, they have the bottles in the fridge, and the prices are cheaper. I know right? Makes sense….

    • racmike on 15/02/2016 - 00:06

      you can grab two bottles (one from the shelf and one from the fridge) - go the self service checkout and scan the one from the shelf twice?

      • p1 ama on 15/02/2016 - 19:22
        +1

        They don't usually have 1.25L or 2L bottles in the fridge. These tend to be like $1.50 and $3 or perhaps even cheaper if they're on special. The 600mL bottles from the fridge are like $3.50 or something.

    • Donaldhump on 19/02/2016 - 01:09

      legend, do you also stand at the deli at 4:45 waiting for marked down chickens

      • p1 ama on 19/02/2016 - 12:24
        +1

        Nah, I don't stand around there so to speak, but I usually try and pop by to see if there's any left by the time I finish work.

  • schwinn on 14/02/2016 - 10:46
    +5

    Back in the day, IKEA SA had a monthly voucher of $20, no minimum spend. What they didn't do, was expire the voucher after use. It was perfect for paying for small items around the house, like photo frames etc.

  • JelIyfish on 14/02/2016 - 12:20
    +3

    I would buy games that were heavily discounted clearance items (such as $80 down to $30) from shop A and then take them to a department store shop B and say they were unwanted gifts and I didn't have a receipt. They would give you store credit at the department store B for the value they scanned ($80) and then buy whatever you wanted.

    This is about 15 years ago so not sure if it'd still work now.

  • DiscoJango on 14/02/2016 - 12:58
    +2

    in early uni days, when they had their own ticket inspector guy, he just looked to see if you had a ticket on your dash, never actually read it. so you would buy a 20c ticket, and keep using it as long as it looked "fresh", when it started to fade, just buy another one. never got caught. then they got a private company to do the ticket checks, and those guys actually read the tickets, no more 20c parking a month, hello $5 a day.

  • fezzo on 14/02/2016 - 13:30
    +3

    I was going to write about the classic "enrol in university, get a concession travel card (Opal), then withdraw from courses", but this doesn't work anymore.

    The concession Opal cards are linked to your university enrolment. So if you withdraw after 2 weeks, the Opal system knows, and it's illegal.

    • Donaldhump on 19/02/2016 - 01:11
      +1

      yeh i had a qut student card for a good solid 8 years… It had an expiry date on the card, when you were expected to complete your course. This was a field you filled out yourself. I said 8 years for a 3 year degree

  • mgexiled on 14/02/2016 - 14:46
    +13

    This was years ago now, but when one of the Call of Duty games came out (I think it was Modern Warfare 2), I bought a bunch of used games from EB Games (about 15) that were super cheap and on the trade-in list for JB Hi Fi (remember those?) for a deal where you can trade 3 games and get COD Modern Warfare 2 free. I traded in 15 games (a few from my own collection) for 5 copies of Modern Warfare 2, that had a trade in value at EB Games for basically full price return ($90-$100) as the game literally only just came out. I then went to GAME, who had a policy of matching/beating trade-in values for games, and traded in 5 copies of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (The GAME staff were very suspicious when my friends and I were doing this - walking in and trading 1 game in each separately). I then went to another GAME store with a collective credit of $500-$600 and purchased a PS3 and some games. The GAME staff told me that the gift cards were individual credits and they cannot be used together. I ended up on the phone to the area manager for GAME who tried to tell me what I was doing was illegal. After some back and forth I ended up walking away with the PS3 and some games for the cost of the EB Games I bought at the start (about $60-$70).

    Shortly afterwards the GAME franchise dissolved :/

    • theguyrules on 15/02/2016 - 11:09

      I did a similar thing for MW2, but only buy buying 3 or so copies of Lego Indiana Jones (I think) cheap from Big W and using it to boost my trade-ins.
      Good game too.

    • phluffed on 15/02/2016 - 22:55
      +4

      Many people used this, that's why JB changed the way they worked it.
      I started at 5pm with a new JB opening "friends and family" night, picked up some new release games then traded them to EB at full trade in price (which was more than I paid in the first place). Used the trade in credit to buy specific pre owned titles, removed the stickers and traded them in at GAME under their policy for more credit, then got pre owned titles there for trade in back at JB for multiple copies of a new premium game. Took those games to a different EB up the road and after 4hrs in 2 shopping centres rolled $110 investment into a PS3 and 5 premium titles.

      • aliocroc on 16/02/2016 - 21:46

        That is incredibly productive!

  • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 15:33
    +1

    I'm not sure if this would work but your welcome to try it if you want. Buy a Coles $50 prepaid master card gift card or similar product and use it to pay for a village roadshow annual pass then spend the remaining $41. This would get you one month of theme parks for only $9 ($14 if you count the $5 card fee). Please comment if this works for you.

    • rye on 20/02/2016 - 00:00

      Like your thinking! Will have to investigate this…

  • luxx on 14/02/2016 - 15:39
    +1

    Back in the day, before the Euro, Germany used the Deutschmark. The Australian 10c coin was right on the same size and weight as the 1 DM coin, and 1 DM was roughly equal to AUD$1, give or take a bit.
    I was told this before going on a month long trip there and took about a shopping bag full of Australian 10c coins. I lived like a king from the vending machines.

    Anyone know of any other coin similarities? NZ coins don't count!

    • blablabla23 on 15/02/2016 - 01:32

      yeh the gold malaysian 1 dollar coin could easily pass as $1. Got one as change from a vending machine ages ago, didn't even notice until i tried to spend it at maccas and got laughed at.

      FYI 1 malaysian ringgit is worth roughly 30 aussie cents.

  • captobvious on 14/02/2016 - 16:34
    +15

    Tick the indigenous box on a job application.

    • devnull73 on 16/02/2016 - 19:53
      +1

      Ummm, do they actually ask? Whatever for?

      • captobvious on 17/02/2016 - 00:59

        At least 90% of job app forms have them especially government and large multination firms. Its usually near they disability question.

    • Gnosh on 17/02/2016 - 21:33

      Do they check??

      • captobvious on 17/02/2016 - 22:30

        No

        • altomic on 02/03/2016 - 23:16

          NT govt are cracking down on this.

  • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 16:51
    +1

    One still working (tested just before writing this comment) is you can subscribe to Vessel and immediately after cancel the subscription. You'll get the month of early access but you won't be charged. You can do this month after month. I've been doing it now for about 8 months. If anyone wants some photographic proof, I'd be happy to provide it.

  • shortgum on 14/02/2016 - 17:17
    +3

    Racing and Sport arbitrages for over 2 years now and still going!
    Not really sure this is a loophole but certainly going well if not too greedy! definitely wiser than average joe mum dad investor put savings into stock market for no returns.
    Always tempting to bet bigger for faster profits and open up more and more then other oversea bookies. But eventually seeing people gets unfair ban or restrictions on account. So keep me going in lower profit but last (maybe in yearsss) would be better.

    • Peace Maker on 14/02/2016 - 20:24
      -1

      Have you actually withdrawn any of the 'profit' out and used it? These are one of the biggest scams there are, just below a Nigerian Prince email. There were literally dozens of these being run from the Gold Coast. They give you fake profit statements.

      Edit: Link for those interested https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/losing-money-is-a-sure-bet…

      • shortgum on 14/02/2016 - 20:59
        +2

        Yes of coz. bookies nothing to do with Nigerian Prince. they are gambling corporate mugging problem gamblers and shut down people e.g. arbitrage bettor trader, for their profits. It's kind of immoral. but that's the way it is.

        Australian bookies will pay if you win but have to think carefully every step you deal with them. Simply a cat and mouse game. I tried withdraw as little as possible to keep under radar and hope winning mostly from Betfair. Definitely 100% better than blind invest to stock market only if you know what you doing.

        strong maths skill set is vital

        i think that scamwatch article is just for an average joe who have not a real knowledge about the actual skills involve in Sport or Racing Arbritage is.

        • stirlo on 15/02/2016 - 00:20
          +2

          Essentially the only way to do this is with bonus bets and special offers that are normally limited to under $100. I've made about $1k doing this but normally only $10-20 at a time. It's not a way to make thousands overnight…

        • p1 ama on 19/02/2016 - 12:25

          @stirlo:

          It's not a way to make thousands overnight…

          Nobody said it was, if anybody told you there was a way of making thousands overnight, they would be scamming you.

    • JIMB0 on 02/03/2016 - 19:52

      How much can you make out of this without them shutting you down via limiting?

      • shortgum on 03/03/2016 - 16:40

        i've been shut down by the big guys. ladbrokes, williamhill, bet365 but it still possible for low profit use. bet365 out of question.

        Open up all the possible account out there then take up their bonus first.

        my average week is $100-$200 lately. shittiest week is about $50 and when tournament in place e.g. world cup. can be as good as $500+. yet dont be too greedy

        check now a good arb Davis cup Australia v USA. ladbrokes + unibet or sportsbet. might be gone when you check! thanks nick for his injury news.

        • JIMB0 on 04/03/2016 - 00:37

          I've been doing some research on this and some sites say to go for really large bets in the first few weeks to take advanatge before they limit you. They reckon you could make 20-30 grand before getting limited. I'm wondering if it is worth betting smaller amounts to make it more sustainable.

          Have you already been limited and are making $100-$200 a week with smaller bets? How much time would you put into it?

          Cheers

        • juzz0 on 04/03/2016 - 03:28

          @JIMB0: 20-30 k by arbing bonus bets? Really? Maybe over eight years with twenty different books. Usually by the time you are five hundred up and mainly betting on bonus or promo markets they will block you, then ban you outright if you are seen as a "sharp" (after being a couple k up but it depends over the time interval). They have tracker cookies that lodge into your browser which detect your betting activity. I got out of betting months ago because I was stung by a book who paid me out a few grand (after a few multis came through) then took back the money citing a price error. Haven't bet since, dodgy the lot of them. Best use Pinny and speculate rather than arb which is against the terms of use of pretty much all Aussie books.

        • JIMB0 on 04/03/2016 - 09:44

          @juzz0: The site I was reading reckon they did it by betting thousands of dollars at a time. I don't really beleive it.

          Does the cookie track your betting activity across multiple bookies? Are they all sharing information to stop arbers?

        • shortgum on 05/03/2016 - 15:46

          @JIMB0: Op. have you setup your ozbargain account with message btw members? let me know happy to PM you

          There is like a myth how they limit accounts but eventually you will built your own experiences how to handle them. Every step i dealt with these muppets is carefully considered. how to deposit, how to withdraw, change details, call up customer services etc.

          Some bookies still class me as a loyal customer still send me random bonuses as at today. don't know how far it goes but at least a few is still out of their radar

  • brickwall on 14/02/2016 - 17:28
    +6

    Back when myki was not invented yet, if you validate your 2 hours tram ticket exactly on the hour e.g 2 PM, 3 PM and so on, the ticket is valid for 3 hours. We always time our travel to maximise this benefit :p

    • folken on 25/02/2016 - 22:50

      I remember those days :D

  • CI on 14/02/2016 - 17:32
    +11

    i have a subway email from 3years ago that gives me a free sub for any 600ml drink purchase. I have been using it for past 3 years, its still working. I could post it here but then no more free subs for me. email doesnt voucher doesnt have an expiry so 99% stores have accepted it so far - Tried Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, and the 1 time the manager wouldnt budge Port Augusta !

  • jonathonsunshine on 14/02/2016 - 19:11
    +5

    The Lord Alfred Hotel, also known as Hotel LA in Brisbane, it used to have "industry night" on Tuesdays where people who worked in hospitality would get 4 free drinks. They implemented this by handing out a card divieded in four, red, green, blue and yellow corners. Each corner could be stamped 4 times for four free drinks, and each week would be either red, blue, green or yellow week. The idea was that they could save money on cards by making people use the same card for 4 weeks.

    So… rock up first week, blue week, 4 free drinks. On the walk home you would normally find 2 or 3 other cards that people had turfed on the way. So next week, you had three cards to use for red week. and you'd find a couple of others on the way home that time as well and you get a new card anyway.

    There was a pool comp on that night, I was pretty good at pool but i was always too tipsy by the time i got to the finals…

  • cucumber on 14/02/2016 - 19:35
    +7

    Pirated windows 7 -> upgrade to legit windows 10.

    • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 19:50
      +7

      it doesnt give you a legit version of windows 10 it just lets you upgrade

      • cucumber on 14/02/2016 - 20:15

        oh ok. what's the difference?

        • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 20:31

          i think it's that you don't get updates.

        • goms on 14/02/2016 - 23:38

          if it's pirated, you will need to activate your win 10

        • Sertacv2 on 15/02/2016 - 00:10

          @goms: mines all good. I still get updates too?

        • triviums on 15/02/2016 - 08:36

          @realfancyman: I have used this exploit on at least 2 laptops. Both of them get updates.

        • cucumber on 15/02/2016 - 10:13

          I've been getting updates fine on at least 10 PCs. And they're all marked activated right after the upgrade.
          That's why I thought they're legit Windows 10?

        • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 16:52

          @zerocul:

          I bought windows Vista years ago and upgraded for like $60 when 7 came out.

          Have upgraded each time and now I have 10

        • triviums on 15/02/2016 - 17:52

          @realfancyman: Yes that is correct for all windows versions except windows 10.

          There is an interview where the Microsoft Windows chief explains why they aren't doing that for windows 10:
          http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-china-idUSKBN0ME…

        • realfancyman on 15/02/2016 - 18:51

          @triviums: Any reason why anyone would pay for Windows then?

        • mskeggs on 15/02/2016 - 21:29
          +2

          @realfancyman:
          Corporate users need to show the valid license. I suppose some home users might have pangs of conscience.

        • Agret on 17/02/2016 - 00:20

          Well if you originally had a pirated Windows you don't have a legit COA to display that you own it, after upgrading to Windows 10 you still do not have any legitimate proof that you own Windows. If you are doing this at a business for instance and you get audited even though your Windows is "genuine" you don't have any proof of ownership so it is definitely not a legit copy.

  • Atrophy on 14/02/2016 - 20:03
    +4

    When CoD Modern Warfare 2 came out EB Games were offering some obscene amount for trade-in if you bought it back within the first week, something like $80 or so. JB-Hifi also let you trade 3 games for a brand new copy of it and the trade-in exclusions list wasn't very extensive at the time. Basically I could trade in CoD MW2 at EB Games for enough games to trade in for 2 copies of it again at JB, then go back to EB and trade it in again and do it a few more times. From my 1 copy of MW2 I managed to trade up to get a year of xbox live, Uncharted 2, $50 or MS credit and a copy of MW2 again.

    Good times.

    • realfancyman on 14/02/2016 - 20:32
      +1

      very popular exploit this one :)

  • TheDukeOfNukem on 14/02/2016 - 20:57
    +14

    Red Rooster.

    Every time you make a new account you get a 5 dollar voucher on their app. If you want to be really cheeky, you say it's your birthday and get a free combo on top of that.

    Make a new email, send the verification there, free 5 bucks, free burger, chips, and pop top kid's meal.

    Me, the girlfriend, a friend, his girlfriend, her sister, and this other guy went there all at once and cleaned up over 100 bucks worth of free food in the space of 5 minutes.

    For a while, me and the girlfriend, and occasionally the first mate mentioned, would be going in there twice a day for like 3 weeks. We got a photo of us put up in the back of a store saying to not serve us if we use the free thing.

    I also got around 10/12 kilos that in nearly half a year I still can't lose. Bastards got me back.

    • jelko on 15/02/2016 - 20:52
      -3

      Disgraceful. You should be ashamed.

    • hahaboy on 15/02/2016 - 23:15
      +5

      is this still a valid loophole? I want free 8 / 10 kgs too!

    • montorola on 16/02/2016 - 15:15
      +2

      At least you got a free photoshoot with your girlfriend, btw how did you know they put a pic of you guys up in the back, could you see it from the counter? lol

      • TheDukeOfNukem on 18/02/2016 - 16:33
        +1

        The mate I mentioned, he has a friend who works in the store who told us one day about the photo. Good times!

  • Webber on 14/02/2016 - 22:02
    +12

    I'll be light on the details for this one cos I use it almost every day and it has saved me thousands of dollars over the last 10 or so years.

    My industry wholesale supplier have all their products online for ordering, I discovered that if you add twenty of any item to the cart you get the volume discounted price and also that if you then change the quantity back to one it keeps the volume discount price for the one item. The discount is about 4% and I spend about 100k per year with this supplier so I figure I'm about 40 grand up over the 10 years.

    They have never said anything to me when picking up the goods and despite a recent website upgrade the glitch still works.

  • al2011 on 14/02/2016 - 22:06
    +11

    When I got my first prepaid phone in about 2005, Optus had plans that included free talk minutes to other Optus mobiles. To call people who weren't with Optus, I'd set my call redirect to the number i actually wanted to call and then call myself.

    Saved a couple of hundred dollars easy.

    • baybaboy on 15/02/2016 - 18:31
      +2

      telstra also had the same loophole back in the days.free calls Telstra to telstra but to call other mobiles we divert the number we wanted to call on our phone then call ourselves. even works to home numbers lol

      • bargaino on 15/02/2016 - 22:38

        The bonus with Telstra was they had free diversion on prepaid for many years.
        Some plans had free or cheap calls to a nominated Telstra number.
        So by calling yourself and diverting you got unlimited free or 20c flat calls.

        I think Optus charged 10c/min, which was good, but not free :-)

  • Azn310 on 14/02/2016 - 22:23
    +1

    Not sure if anyone posted this, but :

    free coffee at UTS in CBD
    $13 All day everyday parking at Wilson Haymarket carpark next to UTS if you get the ticket validated in UTS. They dont check ID or anything, it is done thru a self serve validation machine. Havent used it for 2 years now, not sure if any changes.

    • rambao9 on 16/02/2016 - 16:28
      +4

      It's in the library now… it was at the counter before at the entrance of UTS library where you get the pass for entry. At that point they still never checked ID even though it's literally at the counter with these ladies sitting there. But now I have no clue where the machine went, would be nice if someone gives us an update.

  • TurkishDelight on 14/02/2016 - 22:35
    +1

    I am not sure if it will work but make a free Gmail account>create a PSN account with it>add card details (buy a temporary card from the post office). Gather like 10-20 friends and purchase a game from psn store>give access to account details to all you friends so they can download it too and share the cost. Will be $5-10 for a new game that worths $100.

    I did it with farcry3 and it worked. Download the game and you don't even need to keep that account (anyway you can always save account under a different user).

    • mavis30551 on 15/02/2016 - 17:00

      Not sure if it still works?

      I know on my PS4 i had to change its settingsso it was my "main PS4" to play downloaded games on it, and I can only do it once every few months.

    • Agret on 17/02/2016 - 00:25
      +1

      For all of your friends they will need to be signed into that new account to play the games so they will have to take in turns playing, works best for singleplayer games. Since you have created the account and you say yes to assigning your PS4 as the primary then you can play the game at any time regardless if they are signed onto the account. You must not delete the account from your console though, you have to keep it there otherwise the license for it is deleted.

      This also works great for multiplayer games if you share with a single friend. I bought Black Ops 3 on an account which I activated as primary on my PS4 and downloaded it then I signed onto that account on my friends PS4 and downloaded the game on his console too. He can play it on his console while signed into the new account and I can play it on my console while signed into my original account.

      You can play 2 player split screen in CoD Black Ops 3 campaign with a max of 4 players for the campaign. If you have 2 PS4, 2 TV and the trick I mention you can buy 1 copy of the game digitally and play 4 player campaign co-op, it was a great fun night :) the game also has "Local" multiplayer (LAN mode) so even if you don't have active PS+ subscriptions you can play on LAN together.

      • TurkishDelight on 17/02/2016 - 00:34

        Wow

      • pizzaguy on 23/08/2016 - 10:24

        Hi there,

        So, can you download and play games on multiple ps4s anytime or not?

        You say no in the first paragraph, but then, apparently, it works in the next one…

        • Agret on 23/08/2016 - 23:39

          You can if:

          • You create an account and make it primary on your friends console.
          • You play using that account on your console but they play using their own account on their console.

          Whichever system has the account set as primary any account can use the PS+ sub and game licenses, any other console must be signed into that specific profile to have the access rights. That means if your internet is down you can't play your games offline but your friend could play offline or on any other profile since his console has your account set as the primary.

  • [Deactivated] on 14/02/2016 - 23:23

    We used to always go to the movies - buy two tickets and then one person would come out with both tickets and bring another person back in. Can bring in as many people as you want just rinse and repeat.

    • jelko on 15/02/2016 - 20:54
      -2

      So you're stealing. Aren't you the best.

    • T-man on 16/02/2016 - 23:37
      +1

      And where do they sit? Just stand and enjoy the movie?

      • Agret on 17/02/2016 - 09:39
        +1

        Hoyts only switched to assigned seating about 2yrs ago, before then you could just sit wherever you want. If you see a movie towards the end of its run there are tons of empty seats you could use. Just go out and give the 2nd ticket to a friend before the movie starts then send them a text as it begins and they can come sit in an empty seat

    • WT on 04/03/2016 - 15:11

      or just buy 1 ticket and go to a different movie after the first one finishes.

      Never really bothered doing this myself

      Only works in cinemas that have one entrance without allocated seats

  • konazz on 14/02/2016 - 23:43
    +24

    Need a new telephone port or power point installed? We had a really tricky like to run from downstairs to upstairs.

    Solution - Foxtel for 1 month and get them to install points in bedroom. The use new conduit to run cat5. Cost $30

    • cwongtech on 16/02/2016 - 00:30

      Nice!

    • TurkishDelight on 17/02/2016 - 00:52

      @konazz dosent foxtel uses RG6 cables?

      • cwongtech on 17/02/2016 - 03:19
        +1

        The use new conduit to run cat5. Cost $30

        You don't use the Foxtel cable, you just use the wallplate + conduit fitted out for it and swap it out for Ethernet :)

        • TurkishDelight on 17/02/2016 - 04:30

          yes but the wall plate has an RG6 female connector, how do you swap it to an Ethernet cable?

        • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 09:11

          @TurkishDelight: @congtech:

          nice avatars!

        • Agret on 17/02/2016 - 09:41
          +1

          @TurkishDelight: you unscrew it from the wall then screw in a cat6 one. For the cable you tie your ethernet cable around the rg6 cable securely then pull the cable through

        • TurkishDelight on 17/02/2016 - 10:22

          @Agret: right, thats cool.

        • TurkishDelight on 17/02/2016 - 10:24

          @astroberryz: much Thanks…..JDM Doge Woooo..

        • cwongtech on 17/02/2016 - 10:26

          @TurkishDelight:
          Wallplates are cheap (They require a mounting bracket which is pretty standard) + cost like $2-$4. You can get the keystone ones to make it even easier.
          The conduit is the tricky part. Wallplate swaps are really easy.

  • racmike on 14/02/2016 - 23:56
    +26

    This happened 15 years ago. A software company in Melbourne was looking for a Java developer. Applicants need to email their resume to the company and the company will provide a link to a 60 minute Java online exam via email. At the end of the exam, the scores will be emailed to the applicant and the company. The company would invite the top 5 applicants (based on the score) to the interview.

    My friend submitted a fake resume with a different name and sat the online exam. He scored 70%. He submitted another fake resume and sat the exam again. He repeated the process a few times until he got a score of 100%. He then submitted his real resume and scored 100%.

    He was invited to the interview and was offered the job. The pay was too little, so he didn't take the job after all.

    • hahaboy on 15/02/2016 - 23:17
      +3

      would have been awesome if he was able to change the scripts somehow and score 100% without actually doing the test. I don't know if that would actually work cause I don't know enough about scripting, but i will silently chuckle at my idea.

      • Fizzydrink on 18/02/2016 - 16:06
        +2

        they probably didnt know that that was the test.

    • WT on 04/03/2016 - 15:16
      +1

      would be a better story if he submitted another 4 fake's at 100% then he was the only one to turn up for interviews, therefore win by default

  • chiefbodge on 15/02/2016 - 00:19
    +18

    With Tiger Airways: Selecting debit mastercard as the credit card type even when using a normal mastercard to avoid the credit card fee.

    Citibank and ANZ 0% balance transfer offers: I signed up like 5 years ago with both of them and pay back at the end of the 12-15months 0% period. Phone them up to cancel and they offer me another 12months at 0%. Citibank I have done this 5 times and ANZ I have done it 3 times. I just ask them to do a balance transfer to 28 degrees and then ring up 28 degrees and ask for a cheque then whack it in the mortgage. Right now I have 20% of my mortgage interest free. I do this with other banks too but they have never offered a further interest free period like ANZ and Citi do, I have no idea why they keep on doing it considering they have never made a cent from me but I'm not complaining.

    • Hirolol on 15/02/2016 - 09:50
      +1

      How do you get 20% of your mortage interest free?

      • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2016 - 10:20

        +1 following.

      • chiefbodge on 15/02/2016 - 11:13
        +4

        Rather than attempting to explain it all again you can refer to my posts on this in another thread: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/178201#comment-2487072

        I sign up for 0% balance transfer offers and when it's close to expiring I move that balance to a new 0% offer - this money sits in my mortgage as offset. Right now I have 4 cards all with very large credit limits (equal to 20% of my mortgage) with 0% balance transfer offers - I don't want to go into specific amounts but I am saving thousands of dollars a year in interest. The Citibank and ANZ cards have been awesome because once I pay them off (with a new 0% card) they keep on giving me another 0% deal thereby saving me having to apply for more cards.

        • Hirolol on 16/02/2016 - 03:57

          But there are only a limited amount of 0% cards with 6 month limits usually, then Factoring in the cooling off period which i am not sure about, i would think that this cannot be sustained for a long period of time but its sounds like you have done it somehow.

        • NotAMoodle on 16/02/2016 - 05:23
          +2

          @Hirolol:

          http://bit.ly/1kdHrXM - there is not a limited amount of 0% balance transfer offers. Plenty out there.

        • Hirolol on 16/02/2016 - 11:45
          +1

          @dazzywazzy:
          Wow!
          With durations ranging from 6 months to 24 months!

          Thank you very much!!

        • chiefbodge on 16/02/2016 - 14:43
          +5

          @Hirolol:

          I have been doing this for 5 years now. In that time I have had over 10 cards (in addition to my cards I use every day: bmw amex / 28 degrees). Credit score hasn't changed during that time (it has in fact gotten slightly better). That said I'm not suggesting that this wont damage your credit rating - just that it hasn't damaged mine yet.

          My suggestion is if you don't want to sign up for lots of cards just get a citibank or ANZ 0% card - as I said earlier I have had both of these cards for years now and when my 0% period is about to expire I pay them back in full then ring them up and tell them I'm cancelling and they ask "what will it take to keep you as a customer" and I say "another 0% balance transfer period" and they do it - if you have one card with a large credit limit then you wont need to apply for cards all the time like I do.

          Lets say you get one citibank card with a $30,000 limit, you should be able to get a cheque to self then in 12 or 15 months or whatever pay the $30,000 back fully, ring up, threaten to cancel, get another balance transfer period, cheque to self and repeat for as long as they'll let you. (Done it 5 times with me so far). Obviously you'd need the proof of income to support them giving you such a large card though. You might also be able to ring them up after you have a history with them and ask for a bigger limit in anticipation of being given another 0% balance transfer offer when you go to cancel.

          On a 4% mortgage it's a great way to save over $1000 a year with very minimal effort.

        • montorola on 16/02/2016 - 15:22

          @chiefbodge:

          Well done, you're beating the banks at their own game haha

          when my 0% period is about to expire I pay them back in full then ring them up and tell them I'm cancelling and they ask "what will it take to keep you as a customer" and I say "another 0% balance transfer period" and they do it

          Don't they first ask you why you're looking at cancelling? What do you say to that?

        • chiefbodge on 16/02/2016 - 15:42

          @montorola:

          I'm completely honest - just say I only have the card for the 0% balance transfer offer and because the offer has expired I don't need the card anymore.

        • Hirolol on 16/02/2016 - 18:45

          @chiefbodge:
          How do i save comments, i want to save this for future restaurant

        • realfancyman on 16/02/2016 - 21:20

          @Hirolol: screenshot

        • T-man on 16/02/2016 - 23:53

          @chiefbodge:

          What if they say ok, we proceed the cancellation now, you should receive a confirmation letter in mail within 3-4 working days? haha..

        • chiefbodge on 16/02/2016 - 23:57

          @divious:

          It's no big deal if they do it just means I need to apply for more cards in the long run to save the same amount of money. Citibank / ANZ are just saving me the time of applying for another card, considering citibank have done it 5 times in a row I'm thinking perhaps they will never stop unless their policy changes (their policy seems to be keep a customer at all costs). I always try to roll my balances over to a new 0% card anyway (I do this to avoid having to transfer to 28 degrees and getting a cheque every time) so Citibank/ANZ renewing just gives me a larger balance than before.

        • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 00:32

          @chiefbodge:

          Thanks, your tactic is very helpful. I'll try next financial year as I just got a homeloan this year with 2 credit cards. My credit ranking also dropped to average, so just need to wait for a while before applying a new credit card.

        • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 09:16

          @chiefbodge:

          Just one more question, Citibank Platinum Reward card is having a bonus of 60,000 points at the moment, 0% balance transfer for 18 months, $149 annual fee for the first year. But I remember last year this card was on the promotion which you can get it free fee for life. Did you manage to get this card with fee free for life? Or you managed to extent the period of the balance transfer but still have to pay annual fee? Thanks

        • chiefbodge on 17/02/2016 - 09:42

          @divious:

          My citibank card had the annual fee waived when I signed up for the first year (usually $99). Subsequent years I have either managed to convince them to halve it or refund it, on the most recent time I completely forgot to ask about doing anything with it. Obviously annual fees eat into your profits so I try to choose cards which are free of annual fees or have very low annual fees (non platinum cards are better for this - My ANZ card has a 10k limit and is $30/y so is great value).

        • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 10:40

          @chiefbodge:

          fair enough, because I plan to get the Citibank Platinum card which has $249 annual fee (No annual fee for life: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/123330). If I can manage to get it free of annual fee + 0% balance transfer, it would be great. Otherwise, the annual fee will eat into the profits I can earn as you mentioned above. I'll also take a look of the ANZ cards. Thanks.

        • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 10:40
          +1

          @chiefbodge:

          Which cards offer cheque to self, is it just citibank?

        • chiefbodge on 17/02/2016 - 10:48
          +1

          @strikerzebra:

          Citibank is the one that people commonly mention, haven't heard any others that do.

        • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 12:53

          @chiefbodge:

          I heard some credit cards if they are in credit you can do a cash advance for the total of the card for a tiny fee of $2 or something

    • niyiaw on 15/02/2016 - 14:37

      So 28 degrees definitely gives out cheque to self? I tried to do that with Citibank once and they refused to send me a cheque stating they could only reverse the payment which defeated the purpose of a BT.

      • gadgetguy on 15/02/2016 - 14:49
        +3

        Yes they do, I have $40k currently in interest free loans to myself that are earning around 3.5% interest :-)

        I did this via two balance transfers (from ANZ and Virgin money) to credit cards (28Degrees and Bankwest Platinum) that put them into credit.

        Incidentally, Bankwest actually let me transfer my credit balance anywhere I liked, electronically, with no cash advance fees or interest.

      • chiefbodge on 15/02/2016 - 14:57

        I have only done it twice (asked 28 degrees for a cheque due to my card being in credit) but so far but have had no problems and no questions asked either time. I'm really surprised that citibank refused to do it. I have heard (by other ozbargainers) that they will even give you a cheque to self directly for their 0% deals instead of making you do a balance transfer - I have never tried that myself but I definitely will when I ring up to cancel in a month or two when my current 0% period expires.

        I have only done it twice because I use my 28 degrees card alot for work so often can easily spend the amount credited pretty quickly.

        • niyiaw on 15/02/2016 - 15:19

          When Citibank offered free BTs they gave me a cheque for 80% of the limit. Then Coles had free BT which I transferred to Citibank and then the money got trapped as Citibank would only send it back to Coles instead of sending me a cheque. It all eventually worked out as I had some expenses to pay off. All good as I don't need to repay Coles until Aug this year.

        • chiefbodge on 15/02/2016 - 15:25

          @niyiaw:

          Ahh yep. That's useful information to know. 28 degrees is fine and according to gadgetguy above bankwest works too. I suspect other major banks might work easily as well as they often link the credit card with a regular bank account. It's a bummer waiting 10 days from 28 degrees and then having to go out and bank the cheque but I have heard that they will transfer to a nominated account to if you set it up and wait a week (you have to fill out some forms and sign from what they said to me).

        • gadgetguy on 15/02/2016 - 15:49

          @chiefbodge:

          28Degrees would do electronic transfer IF I faxed the request and I didn't have fax access so I took a cheque.

      • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 00:00
        +1

        Can I ask you what is cheque to self? Does it mean you apply a 0% balance transfer card and you dont transfer any owning balance from another card in? And they will send you a cheque to use and you will own them full balance of the card you are appying? Thanks.

  • musicinbed69 on 15/02/2016 - 03:35
    +6

    IDK if this has been posted yet… But if you "upgrade now" with the Windows 10 media creation tool you get a fresh new windows 10 product key from microsoft servers.

    The only thing it checks for is that your previous windows is considered 'genuine', which all the standard windows crack tools can manage to do. Although i've only tried this from windows 7.

    So this way, you can upgrade to windows 10, and choose "keep nothing" to get a clean install, and have a 'legit' license that you will never ever have problems with. and since it profiles ur hardware, you can just reinstall from disc in the future if u ever want to and itll automatically activate on it's own again.

    I find it weird that not many people figured this out because this is how microsoft has always handled upgrades, it's just that in this particular case instead of an upgrade being a discounted price, it's free.

    tl;dr free 'legit' windows 10 or 10 pro keys…

  • musicinbed69 on 15/02/2016 - 03:38
    +1

    Another loophole from a long way back, was that for some reason, the n-gage QD mobile phone could bypass all of optus's charging for GPRS.
    If you tried it in another phone, with the same APN's and all that, you get charged, but once you put it in an n-gage qd, unlimited internet and no charge.

    And I read earlier about the vodafone no-credit gprs unlimited thing too, i figured that out as well, twas great.

    The vodafone web-sms also didn't charge if you had $0 credit, so i got unlimited free sms's from that too.

    • theguyrules on 15/02/2016 - 11:11
      +1

      Oh man! I remember abusing the crap out of the Vodafone no-credit GPRS trick on my first mobile phone in 2005 or so!
      Good memories.

  • musicinbed69 on 15/02/2016 - 03:42

    Also for some reason exetel had issues switching 8192kbps line speeds down to 1536k, and accidentally kept users on 8192k profiles after they tried to downgrade their plan. So I had quite fast internet on generous 1.5mbps quotas and cheap ish pricing, the quotas were generous because they didn't expect users to be able to use that much data so easily. I was careful not to go too overboard though.

  • OzJD on 15/02/2016 - 06:37
    +4

    Telstra (late 1990s)

    Suspending a pre-paid service (lost) and then un-suspending unblocked the service even if you had $0 remaining. Because it was already $0 it did not trigger the block again (but would only last a few weeks). Eventually someone figured it out and they started barring calls instead of suspending. A girlfriend's service was free for a few years because of this.

    Also, they used to have free calls Telstra to Telstra between 9pm and 5am. One time I had my phone diverted to a Vodafone service and a mate freaked out (until he realised he still didn't get charged). We then used to divert one SIM to anywhere (diversions were free back then), and call that SIM for free calls to any network. Later, we simplified this to diverting our own number and calling ourselves (Later, Telstra blocked this)
    Bonus points if you had less than the flagfall in credit (eg $0.13) as you didn't worry about going over the 15 minutes as the call would just disconnect and you'd call back.

    Oh, and so many companies had free SMS if you used another's SMS centre number.

  • OzJD on 15/02/2016 - 06:45
    +1

    Foxtel:

    Not sure if this still works, but Foxtel used to charge for Videos on Demand (eg. Adult and Box Office) once a month or so (when the device called back to Foxtel), so I only ever plugged the phone line in when I was ordering movies and never got charged. (Thanks to the Foxtel installer for letting us know)

    If this is how it still works, it would be simple enough to use an ATA to provide dialtone, but block calls.

  • triviums on 15/02/2016 - 08:50
    +2

    A loophole I occasionally use to get free netflix for a month is to open a brand new paypal and email account. So that paypal allows me to make purchases I would then add a prepaid debit card with $0 on it to paypal. Once this is all done I would then sign up for a free netflix trial. At the end of the month I would close both the netflix and paypal accounts and repeat the process if I needed another month of netflix.

    • tumsum on 15/02/2016 - 09:19

      Yes same with spotify trial

    • aboabo on 15/02/2016 - 13:26

      If the prepaid debit card had say $100, what would happen (given that you'd closed paypal)?

      • triviums on 15/02/2016 - 14:12

        nothing would happen as long as the netflix subscription was cancelled before the end of the month.

    • wildstone on 15/02/2016 - 16:21
      +1

      Not really a loophole and not that Netflix does not know some users do this. It's just that they must have figured not too many people would be bothered to go through this every single month to get continuous service.

  • navegante88 on 15/02/2016 - 09:11
    +1

    At uni we had take home quizes called cmls which were generated online on a weird old system. The exams would generate random numbers on the questions so that everyone had a slightly different exam..
    My frien somehow found out that if you and someone else generated the exam at exactly the same time you would get the same questions with tye same numbers.
    So we would go into the computer lab and line up 3 computer mouses on the generate button and hope we did it perfectly.. This worked 80% of the time lol

  • jacoble100 on 15/02/2016 - 10:00

    I continued to use my student ID for movies well after i graduated because they don't actually look at the ID properly

  • frondono on 15/02/2016 - 10:18
    +1

    I got free Dial Up internet for a while about 9 months back when it took 4 hours to download an album from morpheus. One day the owner of the ISP realized his mistake, and was leaving threatening messages etc. coming round trying to collect more money etc. turns out he was a junkie who was in some serious shit, the isp closed down shortly after, had to get the cops invloved.

  • betweenrows on 15/02/2016 - 10:28
    +3

    Years ago at my first part-time job they had a bundy clock for all part-time and casual employees. One day I clocked in right on the hour and the time was an hour behind. I realised the minutes would tick over from 59 to 00, but the hour took another few seconds. After that I always tried to clock in right as the minutes changed and would then get an extra hour on the time card :)

  • Gecko on 15/02/2016 - 10:53
    +5

    A few years ago, a local shopping centre ran a promotion where you had to have your smartphone up and it had these little $200 crackers appear once a day, you had to go to that spot and it'd award you $200 gift voucher for that shopping centre. There were heaps of different sized gift cards, from $10 to $200.

    Except the $200 cracker appeared on our house every single day.

    We got over $4000 worth of vouchers.

  • timmeh15 on 15/02/2016 - 11:17

    Few years back when the official Man Utd online store had a bug where you were given 50% off everything on the online store despite being in the middle of the season and well before changing suppliers over to Adidas. Bought shorts, hoodies and jackets and got it delivered at half price

  • Tripnfelt on 15/02/2016 - 11:41
    +15

    cafe gave me the police discount for being penned In-between 2 groups of police and police staff and making small talk with them looking like part of their group >___<

    • montorola on 16/02/2016 - 15:29
      +1

      Lol man, most people wouldn't do the things they do if a cop was present, but you involve the cops in your tricks!

      That's on a whole new level haha

  • Maki on 15/02/2016 - 11:55
    +11

    I don't think this is a loophole but we had exploit the benefit from an IKEA promotion. IKEA used to run the "Eat your armchair" promotions where you can use the receipt from the restaurant and credit them to your purchase of IKEA products. We joined that every time. When we were moving house, we needed to get a shelving unit which costs around $300. I checked that they have plenty of stocks and invited a dozen of friends for dinner at the IKEA restaurant. I told them everyone got about $30 credit to eat free, and I grabed extra Daim chocolates as well as bottle of cokes to make it $300. End up I paid a few bucks for the shelving unit. The operator at the cashier was shocked when she saw the receipt. She asked for the supervisor but they still had to credit that. Since then, IKEA stopped the promotion.

    • bargaino on 15/02/2016 - 22:44
      +1

      I hope you remembered to stock up on chocolate bars at the till.

    • WhatWouldBiggieDo on 16/02/2016 - 15:24

      I don't understand how you did this? You still had to pay $300 for the food, right? So you essentially just fed all of your friends and family for free (still a good deal, just making sure I understand).

      • montorola on 16/02/2016 - 15:31
        +3

        I guess it's more along the lines of, if they were going to pay $300 for the shelf, then might as well eat $300 worth of food to make the most of it

      • Maki on 16/02/2016 - 15:31
        +1

        Yes, was shouting dinner for a dozen of family and friends and grabbed free chocolates & bottles of coke while I purchased the shelving unit.

  • lainey13 on 15/02/2016 - 12:05
    +1

    Get 5 stamps on a Baker's Delight card (get a stamp everytime you spend $6 or more). Show card to redeem free loaf. Take back card while they slice the bread. Say 'thank you' when they hand you the bread and walk off. Got quite a few free loaves that way… the younger the staff are the more likely they will forget to stamp the free loaf section of the card :)

    • JimmyF on 17/02/2016 - 15:12

      Must try this!!!

      Also depends on the store, I've seen a few stores 'stamp' the card for a single load ie under $6 purchase.

  • Succulent Synth on 15/02/2016 - 12:35
    +19

    HN once kind of exploited a loophole for me about 15 years ago.

    My parents were looking to get a basic computer for typing letters, playing solitaire etc. I saw ex Government refurbished PCs on sale at HN for $99 including monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. I set it up and it was perfect for what my parents needed.

    About 3 years later my parents received a letter from HN saying that due to an ACCC ruling they had to replace the PC as it was 'not as advertised'. I don't know what this meant as I had checked all the specs against the PC. Anyway they took it in with the letter and were given a brand new HP PC with LCD monitor. I checked the price and HN were selling them for $1800. Not a bad trade for a $99 second hand PC bought 3 years earlier!

  • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 15/02/2016 - 12:43
    +17

    I needed a new computer (opted for MacBook Air).
    Amex had a spend $200 at DJs, get $40 credit promo at the same time. Wasn't meant to apply to gift cards, but we all know how well they catch those transactions…

    • Buy 5 x $200 gift cards on separate Amex cards ($200 saving)
    • Buy Macbook Air for $1394 (fortuitous 10% off sale on day I bought it online - saving $155 off RRP), using 6th Amex card (further $40 saving).
    • Take Macbook to tax refund on overseas holiday ($127 refund). They didn't ask for it back when I returned (and declared it).

    So that's a saving of $522 so far.

    But…

    David Jones also had 10 Qantas points per dollar late last year. Like Amex credits, points are not meant to be awarded for gift cards (or Apple products, for that matter), but again their system couldn't pick it up.

    • $1000 gift cards X 10 points = 10,000 FF points
    • $1394 Macbook x 10 points = 13,940 FF points

    At a value of 1c per point, that makes my savings a further $239.40

    So a $1549 computer ended up costing me less than $790. Boo yeah. :D

    • JimmyF on 17/02/2016 - 15:13
      -1

      you have 6 amex cards? Sad….

      • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 17/02/2016 - 15:21
        +1

        Not all mine…and I get supps to take advantage of ShopSmall… if you don't like making hundreds of bucks for hardly any work, why are you on here? :)

        • 18 on 20/02/2016 - 15:05

          How can you make supp accounts with different card numbers? All of my supp cards have the same numbers. :\

        • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 20/02/2016 - 16:39

          @18: Amex supps are all different.

  • gadgetguy on 15/02/2016 - 14:15
    +5

    Years ago in the UK, Tesco (large supermarket chain) had a pricing policy whereby if you were not charged what was on the shelf or on the item (either higher or lower, didn't matter) they would refund you AND you got to keep the item. This even worked for things where the price per kilo was incorrect and also multi-buy discounts - it didn't matter.

    I was not working at the time so made it my business to take full advantage. A thread was started in a bargain forum highlighting all pricing mistakes that had been found across the country. I would take a list and then trawl one or more Tesco's and check the pricing in the individual store against the price scanner.

    I would stroll through the store, filling my trolley including some legit purchases. I would also check a lot of the CDs and DVDs myself and often came across previously un-posted misprices. I would get through the checkout them immediately stroll to customer service where I would innocently say, "oh I think I may have been charged incorrectly for X - can you please check?"

    Over several months I got every type of item could think of. Lots of DVDs and CD's, clothing, food, drink, you name it. My star freebies were an
    XBOX worth several hundred pounds (the original one - that's how long ago this was) and some huge joints of beef.

    I sold lots of DVDs and CDs on eBay but most of the stuff I kept (or ate!)

    Happy days :-)

    • 0p on 15/02/2016 - 14:40
      +5

      Believe it or not-
      Coles/Woolies/Kmart… Still have this "loophole" where if the price doesn't match on the shelf as it scans the item is free…

      • Bad-Wolf on 15/02/2016 - 15:05

        I wasn't sure about whether it still existed. I usually just get my price adjusted and don't bother asking if I can get the refund and item promo from fear of quoting a v. old policy :-/

      • argonide on 15/02/2016 - 16:42

        Kmart wont give you the item for free but will give your the reduced price.
        Coles and Woolworths will give the first item free and the rest at the reduced price.

      • ronnknee on 15/02/2016 - 16:56

        I know it applies to Coles and Woolies. Can you confirm if it really does apply at Kmart as well?

      • LurvinOZB on 15/02/2016 - 22:22
        -1

        Coles yes but not woolies

        • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:37

          Both coles and woolies still have it.

          Woolies call it the "Price Scanning Policy" or something similar

      • 0p on 16/02/2016 - 00:09

        I'm not sure about other stores but at my local shopping centre both Coles and woollies have this "offer"
        And it has scored me a mini coke LOL worth only $4 I didn't even know about it the manager just pointed it out to a dude in training… Maybe it was a lesson for him?
        I haven't checked Kmart

      • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 00:14

        It's not free, the staff usually asks for $2 or $5

    • JIMB0 on 16/02/2016 - 18:29

      I've had this happen several times at my local Woolies. They just gave me a refund in cash, even though I paid with a giftcard.

      • curryblender on 12/07/2016 - 14:52

        I had this happened about 1 yr ago at woolies. I bought hair colour which was priced at $14.96 on Special, So went to the counter and it came up as $19.XX. I paid for rest of the items and she handed me the refund saying it's on the house.

        I got my partner to go on within 15 minutes and she got it for free as well.

        • JIMB0 on 13/07/2016 - 09:04
          +1

          Normally they go and pull down the incorrect price when processing the refund. Your lucky you got it twice.

  • stratbargain on 15/02/2016 - 14:18
    +8

    Got a Nexus 6P for $230 from Optus.. (well actually two Nexus 6P's for $230 each).
    When they first listed the 6P business plan they had it listed with no handset repayments and a maximum exit fee of $490. Confirmed over chat that I would be able to keep the phone if I cancelled. So bought two for the wife and I.

    Cancelled them the day after they arrived. The loophole had already been fixed and they tried to charge the full amount but showed them the chat and the screenshots of the terms from when I signed up and they agreed to let me have them for $490 each. But the phones also came with first 3 months free (via credit), which came off the $490 bringing them down to $230 each.

    Pretty happy with that :)

    • Bunnyburger on 15/02/2016 - 14:53

      Did they try to guilt you into paying the full amount?

      • stratbargain on 15/02/2016 - 15:13

        Not really. The guy who was assigned my case was actually really cool to deal with. At first they said I'd have to pay the full amount (even though there was nothing in anything I'd agreed to that indicated that was the amount), but as soon as I gave them the chat transcript they escalated it and agreed that I would only have to pay the amount that was advertised at the time of sign up.

    • VeganJerky on 22/02/2016 - 21:35

      Holy crap, so jealous!

  • georgedn on 15/02/2016 - 15:02
    +3

    Around 1999 you could stick a straw just above the coin return cover on Telstra payphones so that the coins would be counted but then just drop straight through to the return chute. Free phone calls! At the time I just wished I had more friends to call! Eventually they cottoned on and had to redesign the coin return chute cover and replace it on each and every payphone.

    More stealing than a loophole, but I get nostalgic thinking about it.. aaah the 90s.

  • kusama on 15/02/2016 - 15:43
    +2

    Some sites you can sign up to get a first purchase discount. I usually do that again each time I buy.

  • Jaskie on 15/02/2016 - 15:46
    +2

    Does anyone remember "tixeachitem" on event cinemas/greater union? Saved quite a lot of money on that. If I recall, once it went up on OB, event cinemas took it down. A lot of us benefited from that :)

  • baybaboy on 15/02/2016 - 16:03

    3yrs ago my simcard had no credit but the internet and sms still works.
    lasted for about 6months till they disconnected my simcard.
    was really good.

    • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 00:16

      Haha, I got the same simcard long time ago and only worked on Gprs till they disconnected

  • Usher9387 on 15/02/2016 - 16:41
    +1

    Subscribed weekly magazine and paid twice mistakenly thru Paypal. Called paypal to adjust the amount and i sent mail to Magazine company about my mistake but paypal as well as weekly magazines also refunded money and got free subscription

  • OptimisticPessimist on 15/02/2016 - 18:24
    +3

    Not sure if this counts as a loophole per se, but a few years back, the train station near where I lived had no facilities to purchases tickets at all (no machine or ticket booth). The station was complete barebones, no elevator to cross over to other platform, no staff, no tickets and no security cameras.

    As such, this prompted me to read Cityrail's policy regarding commuter's who were unable to purchase tickets.
    It basically stated that should there be no ticket vending machines, or a faulty machine, or no staff selling tickets; the commuter was able to board the train to their destination and purchase a ticket from there.

    Suffice to say I was able to travel free (one way) for quite some time (during my Uni studies), as my destination was usually unstaffed, thus no one to check me for a ticket; and if questioned by train guards/police I would explain that my starting station had no means to purchase a ticket, which they would then note down my details and later verify. I did, of course purchase a ticket on my return trip.

    Of course, once a machine was eventually installed, I accepted that the 'opportunity' had ended, that and a $200 fine wasn't worth it.

    • first in line on 16/02/2016 - 09:14
      +3

      Casula Station?

      • OptimisticPessimist on 16/02/2016 - 12:38
        +2

        Err….. Ummm….Ahhh, Nooo.1

        1. Yes, it is. Lucky guess or you've been to Casula station? ↩

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:40

      Haha nice one. How long ago was this?

  • 50cent on 15/02/2016 - 22:14
    +1

    Recently 7-Eleven had a promotion where you would get a free crispy cream donut when you download the Slurpee app. I found out that if you simply logged out and registered another account you could easily generate a new voucher, hence getting unlimited Krispy Kreme donuts. Told a few friends about it too and we ended up getting heaps of free donuts at the 7-Eleven's all over Melbourne until they finally end of the promotion.

  • Ghogger on 15/02/2016 - 22:32
    +3

    I used to work at a certain liquor store and there were a few interesting loop holes ripe for the taking.

    My favourite was when there would be a newspaper or magazine coupon with a generic bar-code for something like '$10 off any of these cases of beers' or 'buy one get one free wine' so I would just keep the voucher under the counter and give a bonus $10 discount or a free bottle of wine to all of my regular customers who were polite.

    Another one was when checking the expiry dates: Anything close to expiry become 50% discount (sweet!) or if it was past the expiry date (or slightly damaged etc.), well.. it was 'supposed' to go in the bin.

    I also remember once that Brown Brothers were having a 'win a case of wine' competition - there were neck tags on all of the bottles. I took just one tag when the store was quiet and punched in the numbers on the website to see if I would win.. and behold, I won! Then they said they couldn't send the case and just sent the money instead as a cheque ($130 or so from memory).

    • Maki on 16/02/2016 - 09:16
      -2

      I thought you were getting $10 from the cashier while applying the voucher on yor customer's purchases.

  • lowndes8 on 15/02/2016 - 22:51
    +2

    Few years back found a atm machine giving out wrong money. If you wanted $80 (four 20s) it would instead give you four 50s

    Lasted a few days was going back 5 to 6 times a day getting 80 out

    • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 15/02/2016 - 22:56
      +1

      Didn't the bank catch up with you?

      • lowndes8 on 16/02/2016 - 09:00

        Nope

        • ninetyNineCents on 16/02/2016 - 10:36

          Banks don't want news like this becoming public because it makes them sound completely incompetent and how can they possibly prove when the mistake started ?

        • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 16/02/2016 - 10:51

          @ninetyNineCents: Presuming the wrong piles of cash were loaded into the wrong slots, and records were kept (which they would have to be), this isn't too hard to solve.

          What's more, they'd possibly have needed to compensate people if $20 notes were coming out instead of $50 notes, so they'd have to get to the bottom of it.

          As for looking incompetent - if they fixed the problem soon enough, maybe they'd let it fly, but I think when the banks have to choose between image and profit, it's not image they care about.

        • ninetyNineCents on 16/02/2016 - 13:50
          +1

          @JohnHowardsEyebrows:

          Your assuming that the pile of $20 comes from one source pile, which they dont actually know. Im guessing the person takes a several chunks of the pile and as they load the machine. Im guessing if it was the other way around the $50 pile had $20, they would simply pay each person that complained or they could compute and pay everybody as if they had been paid out $20s instead of $50s.

          Banks have hidden for years skimmers and the losses they get from that even though the public is to blame for not noticing the big chunky plastic skimmer on the outside. They want people to remain confident with them and have everyone think they do everything well. If people think some bank always mixes up the piles of notes and you get $10s instead of $20s, poeople wont go to that bank and they willlose customers. Of course eerything is about money but image or a bad image stops the customers..

        • Donaldhump on 19/02/2016 - 00:59

          @ninetyNineCents: this happened to my mum the banks, fixed this electronically tho, so surprised they didnt do this

        • ninetyNineCents on 19/02/2016 - 11:20

          @MoMoney:

          Very interesting, but my observation is different simply because they don't know who got 50s instead of 20s. They don't know if the 20s pile was all fifties or how many were because they don't have any evidence of when and where the machine stopped with the twenties and started with fifties.

  • first in line on 15/02/2016 - 23:08
    +3

    Back when ozbargain was in its infancy, there wasn't a rule about advertising referral links. I ended up signing up around 50 ozbargainers using my referral link to the website Brandsexclusive. Every few weeks or so when a new member made their first purchase, I would get an email telling me that $10 credit has been applied to my account. Ended up with about $150 worth of store credits :D

    EDIT: Actually found the original thread, my username was thomas1987
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/19593

  • Yang331 on 15/02/2016 - 23:40
    +2

    Those little "Gatchpon" machines you find around most supermarkets that spit out random orbs filled with Pokemon/game characters etc for about $2 a pop.
    I would tear up old metcards (Melbourne bus tickets until myki was introduced) into smaller pieces and fold them into the rough size of a $2 coin and put it into the coin slot. The machine would recognise it as currency and spit out an orb. Reused it at hundreds of places. Amassed quite a collection of stuff and all it cost was a few used up bus tickets

  • aw13 on 16/02/2016 - 00:15
    +2

    Years and years ago when I was on prepaid, Vodafone had what was likely a bug in voicemail where you'd basically be able to dial any normal number in Australia and it wouldn't use your credit. I used it for a few months as a young teen until they patched it up. Unlimited calls and being employed doesn't make it an issue now haha.

    Also used an online SMS site a few years back that had a web-accessible, insecure internal page that would let you text any number and set any sender number. Used it to send texts to a friend from another friend at school and it'd trip them out!

    • easternculture on 16/02/2016 - 00:31

      Years back i found a bug on a mobile network that gave you unlimited data via an unregistered sim when using a particular mobile phone make and model.

      Got free data for 6+ months until they fixed the bug.

      I probably used over 500GB of data

  • tcme on 16/02/2016 - 02:01
    +4

    Back in the days when the Hungry Jack's Shake 'n' Win app would sometimes show the "50%" off prize, I simply snapshotted it the one time I saw it and used it for 12 months without question. For good measure, as I was driving up to the windows I would shake my phone and pretend to get all excited if I had people in the car, knowing the whole time it was merely a snapshot.

    Close call once, a manager wanted to see the phone. I handed it to her, and even though the countdown timer was obviously stuck, she processed the discount LOL.

    • SupeNintendoChalmers on 17/02/2016 - 11:19

      I would've made a video out of it lol

      • Tayabchinyoty on 17/02/2016 - 12:35

        Know a friend who took the snap shot and shared it through whatsapp

    • JimmyF on 17/02/2016 - 15:20
      +1

      snapshotted? Oh my…. its come to this now.

  • j5ive on 16/02/2016 - 08:15
    +23

    When I was 15 working at the local supermarket we had scan rate goals to work towards on the checkout. I though it would be interesting to try hitting total button every spare second to see if this paused the timer. So If I was turning to put up new bags, or unload a bag, or even wait for more items to go on the belt- I would hit total.

    That month I got a record scan rate and was employee of the month. They quickly worked out what I was doing when they watched me serve someone. I wasn't employee of the month anymore.

    • username999 on 19/02/2016 - 23:56

      "I wasn't employee of the month anymore."

      LOL! Don't know why but it made me crack up so badly. Thanks!

  • Kempe on 16/02/2016 - 10:29

    Not really a loop hole but got possession of a painters account at a paint store just when I was planning to paint my home.

    Went in and ordered 10 litres and it worked great got charged about half price, went back later in the week and got all the rest in the one hit…BINGO.

    • tinx on 20/03/2016 - 17:37

      just wondering what's price difference with normal price ?

  • Donaldhump on 16/02/2016 - 10:45
    +2

    two vending machines at my work

    1.) drinks
    2.) food

    1 didnt take 5c pieces, but #2 did and if you put two 5c in it, and hit coin return it spat out a 10c piece…

    the bloke who owned #2 could not work out why is machine was stocked full of 5c pieces every time he collected.

    • Maki on 16/02/2016 - 11:01
      +1

      And I bet he couldn't also work out why is machine #1 full of 10c pieces

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:46

      Hang on how's that a loophole? 5c * 2 is 10c and you got a 10c coin.

      Or do you mean this was how you could use your 5c in machine #1?

      • hahaboy on 18/02/2016 - 20:08

        Yes.

  • Donaldhump on 16/02/2016 - 11:13
    +7

    at uni back in 90s i was doing a networking class, and the textbooks were a good $120 for the two combined in shrink wrap.
    Some kid burst into class and yelled out that they were scanning for $12, 300+ students stampeded down to the book shop, was funny as

  • baybaboy on 16/02/2016 - 12:26
    +1

    theres still a loophole to get free data on all the major mobile network with no credit :) u just have to use a modded app for android and data works for free. Only downside is it chews up the battery faster. u can even hotspot it to other devices for free net.
    Anyways back in the days when i used to load smscseeker on my lappy and find free smsc for free txt.
    this loophole still works too as i use it for emergency purposes when im out of credit lol

    • Forskin on 16/02/2016 - 14:49

      care to go into a bit more detail?? :)

    • josepet on 16/02/2016 - 16:30

      I really need moar info plz :)

    • realfancyman on 17/02/2016 - 08:59

      more info?

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:47

      Yea more info?? What's the app called? Do you need root for it to work? Does it work with the resellers like Amaysim?

    • rye on 19/02/2016 - 23:49

      Please explain? Via PM?

    • jdogg on 24/02/2016 - 00:48

      I highly doubt that this is possible

    • baybaboy on 24/02/2016 - 01:15

      its very possible. i actually posted the apps on how to get free data on android but told the moderator to delete my post so it wont go viral and loophole stops.
      u dont even have to register the sim to get free data.

    • tinx on 13/05/2016 - 18:33

      so does anyone figured out how to do this ?

      • realfancyman on 13/05/2016 - 23:18

        I have found a way to get free data on Telstra's Mobile Network. PM if you are interested.

        • realfancyman on 30/05/2016 - 17:40

          Telstra closed the glitch :(

    • bargaino on 17/06/2016 - 13:38

      theres still a loophole to get free data on all the major mobile network with no credit

      I'm guessing TCP over DNS tunnelling? You need a server to connect to. Works on most paid wifi services too. Good for a quick email check.

      • baybaboy on 17/06/2016 - 13:57

        Dns tunneling would be slow like using Freedom.
        There is other ways :)

  • antonthenet on 16/02/2016 - 12:41
    +7

    When a website won't accept AMEX but accepts Paypal - I just pay with my AMEX card through Paypal.

    • uccoffee on 16/02/2016 - 17:24
      +1

      some sites also restrict AMEX through paypal

      • ucd12345 on 17/02/2016 - 10:20
        +2

        If this happens, simply remove your bank account from PayPal leaving only the AMEX. Since I tried this, it has worked hundreds of times without a hitch.

        • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:47

          Wow did not know that. Didn't even think of that..

  • born2reign on 16/02/2016 - 12:44
    +16

    One that I use at JB-Hifi when purchasing any electronics is to haggle them down for a deal on a TV for example. They usually drop it 5% or so if you simply ask. Then you need to look unimpressed by the deal and then offer to purchase a DVD player, HDMI cable, surround sound system etc. After this the sales rep will drop the price of the TV substantially after factoring in the entire bundle/package that you're buying from them.

    Keep the receipt, next day take everything back but the TV (or whatever item you actually want to keep) and get your money back for everything else and hence getting the TV for 15%+ off.

    One time, I couldn't be bothered coming back to Westfields the day after, so I literally took it all back 30 mins after purchase which was a little awkward lol but no dramas with it.

    • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 12:20

      What is the return policy normally?

      • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:48
        +2

        Technically they don't have to refund you for "change of mind" (which this would most likely fall under, but as long as you keep your receipt plus don't open the item you intend to refund, it makes it a lot easier.

        • strikerzebra on 18/02/2016 - 09:25

          Ever been rejected?

        • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 11:56
          +1

          @strikerzebra: Nope. Not when I've satisfied criteria above (receipt + unopened). But can't say I've tried without satisfying the criteria either.

          Also, receipt can be an electronic receipt (e.g. you've taken a photo of it on your phone) - but of course hard copy is better. Just saying that it can be hard copy.

        • born2reign on 18/02/2016 - 14:40
          +1

          @strikerzebra:

          Nope, done it about 4 times as well. Usually when buying a TV or a harddrive

      • born2reign on 18/02/2016 - 14:39

        Standard 30 days not opened package no questions asked I would imagine!

    • Giraffe on 18/02/2016 - 00:06
      +1

      Inadvertently did something similar when I got a quote from Harvey Norman for a mattress and bed frame (and was able to negotiate more of a discount for buying more). Had the quote printed and a week later called and said I wanted to go ahead with mattress only - no issues getting the discounted price even without the bed frame.

  • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 13:28

    When I use to do it I would go and find the employee parking at westfields and it was bac kthan $6 for a whole day.

    That's it if i knew I would be out there for more then the free amount.

  • sauce2k6 on 16/02/2016 - 13:32
    +7

    Carlton dry had a promotion two years ago where you can win festival tickets.

    Inside the case was a code you would enter online to see if you instantly won or not. After my first one was not successful I thought I'd give it another try using the same code. The code was valid but didn't win so I then used the same code about 500 times and won 6 double passes to different festivals.

    They must have learned from this because last year they had the same promotion but used unique codes :(

    • BanannaMan on 17/02/2016 - 12:44

      nice thinking outside the proverbial box!

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:50

      Not really understanding what you're saying. So you used code A, didn't win. Then you tried using same code A again and again, didn't win. Then you used the same code A 500 times and won every single time after that? How does that work? Lol

      • scrimshaw on 17/02/2016 - 20:16

        I'm guessing Carlton did not use an RNG (random number generator) and therefore the codes were not unique (i.e possibility that the code is reused and reprinted multiple times)

        I'm assuming that every time the code was entered there was a small chance the user would get the prize.

        • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 11:57

          No RNG makes sense considering what he said, but it doesn't seem to make sense that the first couple of times it didn't work, yet it worked every single (500 times) after that!

          Is that also a symptom of lack of RNG? Not familiar.

        • webtonmoy on 19/02/2016 - 05:35
          +2

          @illumination: I guess what he said is that he tried it for 500 times, and in those 500 trials, won 6 times.

        • illumination on 19/02/2016 - 15:48
          +1

          @webtonmoy: Ah - I think I missed that part…. :) makes much more sense now!!!

  • michaelTito on 16/02/2016 - 13:58
    +11

    About 6 years ago I was hooked onto this mmorp game. Found a loophole to duplicate items.

    It was a character transfer loophole. It allows you to transfer one character from one account to another. The process is when you transfer one character to another account you need to log off from the account you're transferring from or else it will give you an error message asking you to log off from the account you're transfer in from.

    So after a weekly maintenance I bought a high level character from some random it in game. Once I accepted the character, logged on and confirmed everything was ok and logged back in with my main character to realise that the guy who sold me his character is still logged in with the exact same character standing there for hours. (He went afk without me knowing).

    From there onward I figured out that you don't actually need to log off and still be able to transfer character. Did a few test transfer and worked out a way to keep the duplicated items in the account storage.

    From then onward I was the richest guy in game. Made a lot of friends who help me sell those items to other players for real cash.

    Lasted 3 months. Made about $50k in total.

    Went on a 3 months holiday, came back got questioned by he custom asking me where I got all those money from. Wasn't a good experience.

    Got let go after 3 hours of questioning. Worth it. 5/7 would do again

    • CVonC on 16/02/2016 - 14:02
      +6

      that's a solid five out of seven story mate

    • michaelTito on 16/02/2016 - 14:11
      +1

      read this again and fk me dead, so many typos.

      was typing this on my phone while pretending to take a dumb in the bathroom at work. (another loophole).

      • CVonC on 16/02/2016 - 14:17
        +1

        that's not too nice on the dumb

    • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 10:20

      Did you travel with all that money on you?

      • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 12:56

        I didn't spend all the money travelling. Spent around 10k and kept the rest and bought a house with it.

        • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 14:05

          Ah okay, just wondering why all of a sudden customs would interrogate you if you didn't have all that money on you.

        • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 14:58

          @ronnknee:

          Well some transactions were made via PayPal and some were made via western union. They had no idea how much I received via western union but a large amount Via paypal. (From then on, that's the time I know the fed can get access to everything. Even your PayPal account.) THey worried that some drug lord paid me the money via paypal and made me go overseas To bring drugs back into Australia.

        • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 16:03

          @michaelTito: Ohhhh wow, that's really interesting (and terrible experience for you).

    • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 12:21

      50k , shit, why didn't you just put the money in your bank ?

      • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 12:57

        If I did that I would probably be in jail right now.

        I deposited the left over money into my dad bank account and bought a house with it using them money as deposit money.

        • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 13:04

          Yeh well you don't do it in one lump some .. what was the game by the way?

        • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 15:00

          @strikerzebra:

          The amount added up in my paypal account. Not all but more than half of it. Some transactions were made via western union. I think it flagged the fed when a lot of the money were coming from South American countries.

          It's was a Korean MMO call MU online.

          It was the shit back then. A lot of Brazilian and South Americans play that game.

        • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 15:41

          @michaelTito:

          Looks like a better version of runescape haha

        • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:54

          Why would you be in jail? From what I can see, you didn't do anything "illegal" did you?

          Also, just curious, how was the interrogation? What did you say?

        • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 19:21

          @illumination:

          I wouldn't in jail.was just 19 year old me being scared.

          They were like where did all those money come from. I made up bull shit like I sold my unused stuff on eBay and some of them are from me relatives overseas etc. When I was overseas I bought a full luggage of new clothes and I told them I was going to sell those clothes after I wear them once. They told me if I own a business. I said hell no. Those clothes are for private use only and sold them as I no longer need them. They asked if I spent all my money overseas I said yes. Asked me what I'm doing for a living.

          Not much questioning but more like searching. They Went through every corner of my luggage. Told me to take off my pants and shoes ( in a room) took my wallet and scan every single corner or it.

          Funny thing is I got nothing to declare during that time. All The stuff I'm brining back in are just clothes and other random craps like cheap mobile phone shoes etc. No wood or food or whatever but as soon as I hand the officer the arrival form and passport they looked at me and asked me to follow them. My girlfriend was with me they told her to walk through but she insisted she want to stay with me. I'm pretty sure my name somehow got flagged by their system.

          Government spying on us is real!! Jokes

          Like you said I did nothing wrong.

        • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:32

          @michaelTito:

          Haha wow. Really interesting story and props to you.

          So really, you could've been honest about everything and you'd still be fine I'd imagine? Simply because you've really done nothing wrong. I guess as you mentioned, fear got the better of you so you tried to make up random stuff as to how you got all the money?

        • michaelTito on 17/02/2016 - 19:45
          +1

          @illumination:

          Looking back now even if I tell them the truth I don't think I will be in trouble. But yes I was shitting myself. I was 19 recently started Uni and I'm not an oz citizen. Don't want to get deported back really so I made up lies haha. I will tell this story to my kids when I'm a dad.

        • hahaboy on 18/02/2016 - 20:15

          @strikerzebra: wave1: Trimming armour for free!!!

    • Mumbles on 18/02/2016 - 05:22

      Don't worry Customs probably stopped you because of a low-tech reason. You were carrying a suspiciously large amount of cash:
      http://www.austrac.gov.au/travellers/travelling-or-out-austr…

      I figured this out when I was in a similar situation to you. At every airport my sneakers were being swabbed and/or get body frisked.

    • hahaboy on 18/02/2016 - 20:13

      what mmorp?

  • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 14:04
    +13

    Any 7-eleven franchise owner's here?

    • Donaldhump on 16/02/2016 - 16:34
      +1

      u need a job, i pay good money cash in hand

      • scrimshaw on 16/02/2016 - 17:07
        +1

        and all you can eat expired sandwiches.

  • sydneybargainer on 16/02/2016 - 16:00
    +2

    buying train ticket after midnight (off peak fare) and used during peak hours next morning.

    • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 10:22
      +3

      Wouldn't work in NSW as the reset time of the tickets is 4 AM.

      • sydneybargainer on 17/02/2016 - 13:16

        it used to work in city rail around 10 years ago.

  • AbhiC on 16/02/2016 - 16:14

    Few months back, I saw an ad in a store where they were selling iPod Nano 16 GB 7th Generation ( Only Pink Colour) in clearance for 119 AUD instead of original price of 219 AUD. I showed that ad in another store and price matched it ( I did not mention that the offer is only for Pink colour) and bought Blue colour iPods. I bought 10 pieces from there different stores and sold it in gumtree for anywhere between 165 to 175 AUD ;)

    • CVonC on 16/02/2016 - 16:43
      +4

      That was at Target and also available for the purple and blue you broden you

      • AbhiC on 16/02/2016 - 18:56

        They had offer only on Pink Colour in the month of December. That too was out of stock online.

  • HeartFeltAxe on 16/02/2016 - 16:31
    +3

    Ahhhh, I love thinking of all the times my dad and I exploited things… (I'm 14)
    There was this one time where my dad, brother and I all went to target and I wanted to buy a Nerf Gun, but mainly just to have a little look around. And when my dad saw the clearance rack, he was drawn there like some sort of gravitational pull. Guess what was in the rack
    Welll….. there was a giant 750g pack of marshmallows that were gluten free, dairy free, egg free so on and so forth. It even was out of date to add it to the mix, and it was around 5cents a packet. We got about 8 packets and ended up sick on the way home >.<
    Also the 1c watch on ozbargain, that was pretty good.

    • hahaboy on 18/02/2016 - 20:18
      +5

      i was waiting for the nerf guns to come back in the story man.

      • HeartFeltAxe on 18/02/2016 - 20:22
        -1

        Soz, 5c marshmallows are WAY better x)

  • Donaldhump on 16/02/2016 - 16:35
    +9

    sharing a train ticket between myself and ex who worked night shift, as i got off the train she would be on platform waiting…quick paper ticket transfer

    not a loophole, pretty much fraud/theft

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 18:56

      Lol why/how is that fraud/theft? As far as the authorities are concerned, both of you have a valid ticket. They're not to know and won't know it's the same ticket.

      Or are you saying this due to the usual "tickets are not transferable" clause?

      • Donaldhump on 19/02/2016 - 00:56
        +1

        probly has a rule you cant transfer… screw it we did it for years. qld trains are a rip off anyway

  • tazdevil76 on 16/02/2016 - 17:22
    +15

    A few years ago, Adelaide Casino printed vouchers in the FREE city messenger that were $10 off meal plus $5 coin voucher. My friends and I found a heap of city messenger newspapers and cut the vouchers out. Every day for quite some time we would go to the casino, buy a Schnitzel for $12.50, use the $10 voucher so the outlay was $2.50, then after the meal take the coin voucher downstairs and get 5 x $1 coins, then walk out without playing the machines. Profit $2.50 plus free meal.

  • cannedhams on 16/02/2016 - 19:06
    +7

    Whenever I moved house I would always go to Bunnings and buy a $6 piece of timber that was too long to fit in my car. So I would ask for the courtesy trailer. I was only supposed to have it for two hours but if it took five hours for me to move house they didnt mind, I would just make some bs excuse about a flat tire when I got back.

    Pretty cheap trailer hire. I couldnt figure out a use for all the bits of wood until I used a table saw to cut them up into Jenga blocks for the kids.

    • cannedhams on 16/02/2016 - 20:39
      +21

      There used to be this popular Chinese restaurant that had a promotion on Tuesdays- they had a tray of habanero peppers out the front and if you could eat eight of them you got a free main. The sting was that most people could not even eat one because they were so hot. They had little bottles of milk at 2 dollars a pop to take the burn away and I think they sold quite a few of those.

      This guy I knew who worked at a pharmacy in the same shopping mall used to gargle lignocaine to numb his throat and then eat all eight peppers. Unfortunately his throat was too numb to taste the meal they gave him and also the peppers tore strips off his arse on the way out but he figured it was worth it for a free meal. Also you got your photo up on the wall.

      • scrimshaw on 16/02/2016 - 22:23
        +2

        peppers tore strips off his arse

        Owwww

      • CVonC on 16/02/2016 - 23:30
        +2

        laughing my or should i say his arse off >_<

      • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 12:23

        Haha, instant karma

        • blehgg on 17/02/2016 - 17:25
          +3

          12 hours later karma

  • Bendo on 16/02/2016 - 19:36
    +20

    Whenever there was a survey that wanted my details, I always used to put CEO, Director or Minister.
    Then this gets put in a database and whenever there is a free dinner/free front row tickets/whatever for a show, Boat luncheon, etc, I would get the invite. Still happens sometimes. You are just in a huge database and they sort by the high up titles. I've received many invites to places I would NEVER get into otherwise. Great fun.

    • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 12:33

      Stealing this. See you at the next event :)

    • strikerzebra on 17/02/2016 - 12:50

      Haha wow, gonna try it, don't they ever ask where you work?

      • Bendo on 18/02/2016 - 13:19
        +1

        Haven't asked where I work but once I got a really penetrating look as I'd put Minister of Education or something…
        I think I was wearing thongs. Still got in though. Ha!

        • strikerzebra on 18/02/2016 - 14:02

          Haha hilarious, I guess you could just say your accidentally put Minister of Education in error

        • Daabido on 23/03/2016 - 22:43
          +1

          @strikerzebra: They obviously had an error in their database. Your name was Mister Ed Ucation.

  • visualmagic on 16/02/2016 - 20:06
    +16

    In 1997 (ish) I won a radio competition with Mick Malloy and Tony Martin.

    The question was "Mash Up a Celebrity with a Product" - mine was a "Michael Jackson - Jack-In-The-Box", a plastic toy that jumps out and scares children.

    For this I won a ticket to The Cranberries Brisbane concert. They cancelled the concert from illness and the radio station gave me a years supply of their movie nights, so every couple weeks I would get the promo tickets delivered. So movies like Sleepers and The Lost World. Always 2 tickets.

    Anyway, I realized within a couple sessions that every time the movie started they would yell out "look under your seat! you may have won a CD of [insert band here]"

    So… I started going early and looking under seats as casually as I could until I had a couple of the prizes each week.

    Which… I would then 'return' at Sanity type stores that would accept new discs without receipts for exchange or refund.

    What a little shit I was.

  • Lord Fart Bucket on 16/02/2016 - 21:49

    A few…
    Years ago, iiNet's data counting system was VERY laggy. If you used about 95% of your data with a couple of days to go, you could just keep downloading with little chance to get shaped.

    Another one is some companies have great refund policies. Bunnings for one. The amplefier in the unit block i live in got fried (lightning). Went to bunnings, bought an expensive indoor antenna, used it until the other one was fixed (4 days), returned the bunnings one for a full refund, no questions asked.

    • Mumbles on 18/02/2016 - 05:46

      I happily survived for years on a 2GB Telstra ADSL plan using this trick. Friends couldn't believe it since Windows Updates alone can be half the monthly quota.

      Last day of the month I would go download crazy (Windows patches, anti-virus updates, malware updates, new web browser, browser plug-ins, StarCraft2 updates, iTunes updates, IOS game downloads, iPod/IOS firmware updates, YouTube downloader).

    • adzzz on 18/02/2016 - 15:37

      They have great refund policies there until people like you exploit them and then the rest of us with legitimate returns need to send things back to the manufacturer to be checked because there were too many people exploiting the system…

  • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 22:00
    +4

    This is a little convoluted and I've cut some corners (But I think you're smart-enough to fill-in the blanks). This one's known as "Telstra Christmas" with me and my friends.

    1 Get a dual-SIM Android Phone like the Moto-G or Moto-E (Both EXCELLENT phones!)

    2 Aquire 2 Prepaid Telstra SIMs, one for voice, one for data (Phone might come with one already)

    3 Insert only the data sim, start-up, set it up and buy something from the Google Play store using "Telstra credit" as the payment source

    4 Power-off, insert the voice sim, start-up and configure this how you will, yadda, yadda, yadda.

    Now When you need more data, buy a $140 data recharge (AFAICT you have to do this directly with Telstra - none of the other sneaks using Woolies' gift-cards or Flybuys will work as retaillers usually have $100 or $200 recharge points right now). Use Paypal backed by an Amex Platinum-Platinum/Platinum-Reserve card for bonus points if you can.

    After this you get 16G data with a 2y shelf-life + $140 to waste in the Play store (Go buy TV shows, Movies, Books, DRM-free music… or Apps if you must).

    And for the voice sim?… recharge $100 at a time (Now you CAN use those Flybuys or Woolies gift-card tricks!), This gets you 200 voice minutes with a 12-month expiry + $100 credit you can either waste in the Play store, or better-yet spend on TXT or voice-minutes "Plus Packs" (You have to figure-out which one is best for you and when).

    Set-up a Telstra account to manage your accounts and install the (Better than you expect) Telstra 24x7 app to help manage this.

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:08
      +9

      So the end result is, you've paid $240 in recharge credit plus whatever the starter packs cost
      And you get:
      - SIM 1: 16 GB with 2 years validity (total right? Not per month), $140 credit to use in Google play store
      - SIM 2: 200 voice mins for 12 months, $100 credit to use in Google play store

      So that $240 is the equivalent of $10/mth.
      And 16 GB over 2 years is an average of 0.66GB/month
      200 voice mins is a bit less than 10 mins a month.

      I'm kind of struggling to see how this is such a good deal?

      • [Deactivated] on 26/11/2016 - 15:38

        Sorry for the ancient-history response - only just noticed there was one.

        It's convoluted, but the value comes from the credit attributed to the data sim - ignore the voice sim (Use whatever you want - or nothing - You can receive calls on the data sim, you just can't make them).

        It's $140/2Y for "Enough data to get you by when you're out of range of WiFi". I'm not trying to "use it up to get my money's worth", it's the availability of data that is the point. All mobile internet in Australia is godawful value. I use these sims for grey-haired relatives who just need to send/receive email mostly and the long-expiry's perfect.

        NOW…
        I can also use the $140 credit in the Telstra account in the Google Play store. This in no way affects the 16G of data credit I have. I've bought several seasons of recent TV shows this way (Game of Thrones, etc.)

        So you could consider I either bought 2Y of low-usage internet service and got $140 free Play store credit or vice-versa.

  • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 22:07
    +3

    Morally questionable… seems to be the trend:

    StyleTread had a $30 off $200 or more. They hadn't disabled gift cards.

    Purchased a $200 gift card for $170. I used that gift card to purchase another gift card with $30 off.

    I did this 9 more times to give me $500 store credit for $170 outlay.

    They honoured the purchase even after picking up on the exploit, props to them for that.

    MJ Bale had a similar exploit at one stage with 20% off. Unfortunately it was not nearly as lucrative as you had to wait for the gift card to be mailed. Only $500 credit for $400, which was then spent on a 20% off sale.

    • [Deactivated] on 16/02/2016 - 22:09
      +4

      "We would like to also say thank you for bringing to our attention that vouchers could be used to buy gift cards , This how can been fixed and will no longer work in the future."

      Haha, great response from StyleTread.

  • subywagon on 17/02/2016 - 01:03
    +2

    Whenever I need a trailer I pop down to Bunnings and buy a length or two of pine decking or timber and make use of their courtesy trailer. I always ask for the larger one. I managed to move pretty much my whole house by doing this a couple of days in a row. They are fairly lax with the return time, you generally have two hours. You can also return the timber and just say it was the wrong type etc.

    • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 10:27
      +2

      You pretty much copied this guy's comment…

      paizuri 15 hours 17 min ago
      Whenever I moved house I would always go to Bunnings and buy a $6 piece of timber that was too long to fit in my car. So I would ask for the courtesy trailer. I was only supposed to have it for two hours but if it took five hours for me to move house they didnt mind, I would just make some bs excuse about a flat tire when I got back.

      Pretty cheap trailer hire. I couldnt figure out a use for all the bits of wood until I used a table saw to cut them up into Jenga blocks for the kids.

      • subywagon on 17/02/2016 - 10:36
        +3

        Oh lol I didn't see that guys comment obviously.

  • Wallyt99 on 17/02/2016 - 07:38
    +1

    The snooze button

  • sevendollarsfifty on 17/02/2016 - 10:26
    +15

    I once realised that when I deposited money into my online betting account from my credit card I received frequent flyer points from the transaction. I then realised that I could just withdraw the money back into my savings account.

    I used to deposit all of my credit limit from my credit card into my betting account and just withdraw it again a couple of days later. And then just transfer it back to the credit card before the interest free period expired. Because I was turning over so much money in my credit card they started offering me bigger and bigger credit limits.

    I probably earned about half a million frequent flyer points doing this.

    This was at least 10 years ago. Much harder to do now…

    • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 17/02/2016 - 10:35
      +1

      That's awesome.

    • taoz on 17/02/2016 - 18:57

      Nearly all banks now class credit deposts as cash advance. Crazy.
      there must ben a lot people like you

      • WhatWouldBiggieDo on 18/02/2016 - 11:37

        Strange as it's not the credit card company who is losing out here. They still get the transaction fees from the betting company. It's the betting company who are losing money

        • realfancyman on 30/05/2016 - 17:59

          They are losing out on the cash advance fee people might have paid if this loophole didn't exist. Plus the frequent flyer points.

        • WhatWouldBiggieDo on 31/05/2016 - 11:59

          @realfancyman: They aren't missing out on frequent flyer points. The frequent flyer points are funded by the processing fee charged to the merchant by Visa/Mastercard/Amex. It isn't really a loophole, as I said, it's only the betting company that lose money when you do this.

    • Twocupteabag on 28/02/2016 - 22:47

      The pricks at beteasy wouldn't give me $7 back I had deposited. Not even related to a bonus bet deal.

  • pogichinoy on 17/02/2016 - 10:40
    +1

    Years ago, Event Cinemas had $10 movie tickets any day of the week and at any time for any type of screen except Gold class.

    I kept it hush and shared it with friends until it was posted on Ozbargain and eventually expired the deal.

  • BargainShopaholic on 17/02/2016 - 12:30
    +4

    This what I've been doing for a while, not sure if it would be considered as a loophole, but it works:

    1. Make online purchases on David Jones (or similar). Make sure purchase amount qualifies for free shipping.

    2. Pay with Paypal, select the Amex, get points

    3. Wait for goods to arrive

    4. Return goods in person in store

    5. Invoice only says it is paid through PayPal and does not state which card

    6. Refund onto Offset account

    7. Pay off card balance by due date.

    8. Get points + save on interest on both mortgage and card.

    I have not had any problems so far. Been doing it since November, and have earned about 30k points so far.

    • ninja33 on 17/02/2016 - 14:03

      How do you get them to refund into your offset account? I thought they would automatically load back onto your credit card, and thus the points will be nullified…?

      • BargainShopaholic on 17/02/2016 - 14:24

        The refund will be a manual process, not automatic.

        When you bring the item in store to refund, they would normally say "ok so this will go back onto the card you paid with", but the invoice only shows the items are paid online, doesn't say where it's from.

        The sales assistant will need to select a method of refund, in this case, a card.

        So you just whip out the debit card that is associated with your offset account. Done. (If your offset account doesn't have a debit card, then just refund it onto another debit card, and then transfer it to your offset).

        If they really insist on it going back to the same card (they won't), then just say you paid with paypal.

        I've done it heaps of times since November, and I haven't had any problems.

        • ninja33 on 17/02/2016 - 14:39
          +1

          Well, as long as it's working for you. Just be careful, as DJ's specifically states: "Please note that a David Jones Returns Card will be issued for PayPal returns."

        • BargainShopaholic on 17/02/2016 - 14:45
          +1

          @ninja33:
          Ohh didn't see that. Thanks for that!

          Ok I'll just continue at Myer. Their returns policy appears to be better:

          "If the purchase was made by PayPal for instore returns the refund will be processed to a credit card issued in the same name of the purchaser or a Myer Returns Card will be issued"

          Appears to be any credit card issued in the same name of the purchaser.

          Will put it back on the debit visa and press the "credit" button.

        • ninja33 on 17/02/2016 - 15:02

          I wonder if this would also work for Click and Collect - at least that way you don't need to wait for the goods to get to you. You could collect and refund in one trip.

        • BargainShopaholic on 17/02/2016 - 15:06

          @ninja33:
          I thought of that.

          But I normally buy high priced items to maximize points, and they're never available in the store near me.

          And I can't be bothered buying cheaper items cos it might look suss returning multiple items at once.

          By buying high priced items, I only need to return one or two items at once, and only maybe once a fortnight.

        • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 22:20

          @mishmish:

          careful! they might get your name blacklisted sometime and banned you from buying their online store.

        • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 22:41

          @ninja33:

          It can also help them to save the shipping.

        • kyttiekat on 26/08/2016 - 01:15

          @mishmish: Wow, nice idea! Can I ask what sort of items you buy from Myer (small / high-priced)? Don't they normally take down your details - does it ever seem sus that you return things so often, or not really?

        • BargainShopaholic on 26/08/2016 - 12:56

          @kyttiekat: I mostly shop online, so when I see a sale on Myer, I select what I really want, then add a few Maticevski or Alex Perry dresses onto the order, and return them the day after I receive them. I usually keep the sale items that I was meant to buy though. So I don't really return the whole order.

          They never asked for my details, they have them already from my online order. And no, they never ask questions about returning items. In fact, one of the sales assistants told me that it's quite common for them to do refunds of online orders, because the items always look better online than in person haha.

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:13
      +1

      Ah I know of this one. This works with any merchant that accepts PayPal as a payment method and accepts in-store refunds.

      Some others that come to mind are Officeworks, Target.

      • ninja33 on 18/02/2016 - 15:29

        A couple of laptops from Officeworks might work well.

    • Neoika on 18/02/2016 - 13:14

      I got a question about the points.Do you still earn double or triple points from Paypal AMEX payment or is it just flat 1 point per $1?

      • BargainShopaholic on 18/02/2016 - 14:14
        +1

        The earn rate is not affected by Paypal. It will be whatever it is your financial institution has set for your particular card.

        • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 15:42
          +1

          I think what Neoika is asking is lets say you pay for something through Coles with your AMEX Plat Edge which normally earns 3pts/$ at Coles. If, however, you pay through PayPal (hypothetically speaking), I'm pretty sure you only get 1pt/$.

          So not technically quite right. PayPal is just a "standard merchant" so when you make payments through PayPal, you only get it at the "standard" earn rate of your card.

          edit: May need someone to confirm, but my experience of doing this was using my Velocity Plat AMEX to pay for a booking on HotelClub. You're supposed to earn 2pts/$ on "Accommodation/Hotels", which I did earn when paying for stuff on AirBNB. However, when paying for my HotelClub booking with PayPal, which is obviously also Accommodation/Hotels, I only earned 1pt/$ which is the standard.

        • BargainShopaholic on 18/02/2016 - 16:12

          @illumination: Yes I understand what you and Neoika are asking.

          I should've written "from my personal experience". My ANZ Black Qantas Amex card has an earn rate of 1.5pt/$, and the points earned shown on my monthly statements also reflect that.

          I guess it's best to check with your financial institution.

          Either way, this is what works for me in terms of earning points for little effort.

        • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 16:19

          @mishmish:

          But the ANZ Black Qantas card does not give you any bonus points, so as long as you use ur AMEX to pay on PayPal you will get the 1.5pts/$ no matter what. There's no "alternative".

        • BargainShopaholic on 18/02/2016 - 16:42

          @illumination:

          Like I said in my above post. I said that I understood what you are both asking. Yes I know you are both talking about bonus points.

          And I also said "from my personal experience" etc etc. I was merely writing out what my card's earn rate was. At no time did I say that my ANZ earns bonus points.

          And I did say to check with your financial institution.

        • illumination on 18/02/2016 - 17:12

          @mishmish: I didn't misunderstand your understanding. I guess what got to me was you saying "earn rate is not affected by PayPal" which isn't true (from my personal experience but not yours). But my point was that you can't use your ANZ card experience to comment because there is no alternative points earn/bonus points on the card, i.e. your personal experience can't answer his question

        • BargainShopaholic on 18/02/2016 - 17:19
          +1

          @illumination:

          Yeah totally. Really should've made my first response clearer.

          Moral of the story is, check with your own bank re earn rates + whatever works for you!

  • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 12:31
    -2

    Not a loophole but I worked in a big store and someone left their gift card with like $200 on it and the gift card had no customer details so I got a free gift card :)

    • TheOneWhoKnocks on 19/02/2016 - 21:10
      -1

      So you blatantly stole someone's gift card… Shame on you.

      • [Deactivated] on 19/02/2016 - 21:20
        +2

        How did I blatantly steal it?
        There were no customer details, they could never be identified and no one came to collect it for 1 week.

        What should I do? Throw it out? Keep it indefinitely even though it expires?

        • TheOneWhoKnocks on 19/02/2016 - 21:24
          +1

          I see you've negged my comment. Well after justifying that, it's not that bad. Judging by your first comment, not so much… I also don't know why I used that particular word, maybe because I'm a wee bit drunk.

        • [Deactivated] on 20/02/2016 - 12:41
          +2

          @TheOneWhoKnocks:

          I sure did after what you wrote.
          "Shame on you."

          Re - "its not so bad." It's not bad at all. My options were to throw it out or use it.
          I sure used it and enjoyed every cent.

  • grv on 17/02/2016 - 12:37
    +17

    I once found 10 cents on the sidewalk.

    • Schema on 17/02/2016 - 13:02
      +2

      You're a MADMAN

    • pufffdragon on 17/02/2016 - 14:19
      +6

      I found a dollar coin once. But it was superglued to the cement.

      • grv on 17/02/2016 - 22:43
        +2

        THAT is my nightmare scenario . Trying to pick up money lying on the sidewalk but not able to.While everyone is watching.

        • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2016 - 00:49
          +2

          Better when it's in the centre lane.

        • pufffdragon on 18/02/2016 - 10:22

          The glued coin trick was how people trolled before there was internet.

  • Maki on 17/02/2016 - 14:03
    +2

    Actually I just remember a loophole the Finance Manager found and everyone in the company exploited that.

    The company uses a novated lease company for salary sacrificing. The residual value of the car will be reduced by 65% / 55% / 45% for 1 / 2 / 3 years respectively under the tax rule. For example, to lease a $30K car for 3 year, the residual value will be 13.5K (45% of the original value) (16.5K for 2 yr and 19.5K for 1 yr). The Finance Manager found that if you lease the car for 1 year and renew it twice, the residual value will be 65% x 65% x 65% = 27.4% instead of 45%. So, in the previous example, you can actually get the car at 8.2K instead of 13.5K. This is a loophole by the lease company and almost every employee who lease a car use that method. For some expensive cars, they can even make money by selling the car after the 3 yrs lease.

    • illumination on 17/02/2016 - 19:16
      +1

      Hey that's awesome. Residual value refers to the amount YOU have to pay for the car after the lease ends right?

      Doesn't this affect the amount that is sacrificed from your payslip though? I.e. I'd imagine this would actually end up evening out because each time you do the new 1 year lease, the value is being recalculated and is lower each year?

      • Maki on 17/02/2016 - 22:08

        Yes, residual value is the amount that you need to pay outright after the lease finishes.

        The first year repayment will be higher, the second year is similar and the third year is actually less as the repayments are based on the residual value, which is the lease amount after the first year.

        The value was supposed to be recalculated. That was not how the lease company do it and thus the loophole.

    • kma on 17/02/2016 - 19:19

      But you pay more per month if the lease is for a shorter period (I.e 1yr vs 3 yrs)?

      • Maki on 17/02/2016 - 22:09

        The first year repayment will be higher, the second year is similar and the third year is actually less as the repayments are based on the residual value, which is the lease amount after the first year. You will actually be better off as you can obtain the vehicle at 27% instead of 45% of the original value.

  • brynj on 17/02/2016 - 14:33
    +40

    Some vending machines at Burswood Casino used to accept any card with a magnetic strip to pay for your drink/food.
    2 coffees on Medicare thanks.

    • blehgg on 17/02/2016 - 14:57
      +2

      gold

  • Weezle on 17/02/2016 - 14:49
    +1

    About 5 years ago when TPG used to offer ADSL2+ plans with 100gb of data, I would often download loads of data. I'm talking 20 gigabytes over one night.

    I would often notice discrepancys between the counted usage and what I actually had downloaded. Sometimes I would download 40 gigabytes over a few days, and TPG would only record maybe 8 gigabytes of that.

    Ended up downloading 200-300gb easily in a month and still wouldn't get capped. Eventually they worked this out and fixed it but it was good while it lasted.

    • sunset_on_the_101 on 17/02/2016 - 22:47
      +1

      Ha i used to do that to with internode. Save 500 mb of quota for the last day and smash my link all day long. Always took em quite a few houra to get shaped.

      Managed to get 15gb extra each month. Back when quotas were around 60gb

      • WT on 04/03/2016 - 16:17

        used to do that when we were on 150gb, but found it was just easier to call and they would give you an extra 20gb free.

    • OzJD on 18/02/2016 - 04:28

      I'm on a really old TPG ADSL2+ plan (10GB) and NEVER get capped. I'm not sure why, but I presume it's because of the age of the plan.

    • WT on 04/03/2016 - 16:19

      They used to have a plan where you had xxgb per month during peak, but off peak was unlimited. this wasnt advertised and was in the fine print for some reason

      my parents were on that for ages since we could just download overnight

  • ChickenTalon on 17/02/2016 - 16:25
    +9

    A few people have mentioned some loop holes in making money from MMORPGs

    This is mine for WoW back in… i think 2005.

    There was an in-game auction house where items could be listed for sale. Yes, you'd stop by and search quickly for any bargains and list your own crap.

    Then it advanced somewhat and a few ingenuous people invented an "Auction Scanner" software add-on that would help people identify bargains and then you could also get the software to easily purchase bargains that were X% off the historical price. Yes, you could get a bargain or two and then re-list it for some profit, which I did.

    But I worked out that there were also a few junk items that were never listed on the auction, who'd want to buy a "torn cloth"? (or whatever junk item was).
    You could start listing a lot of them for crazy crazy prices over a week or two. So that everyone using the "auction scanner" would eventually build up a baseline of what a torn cloth would be worth. You could then list some for still expensive, but lower prices so that it looked like a great bargain against the baseline. The junk items would sell and I'd rake it in :)

    Could then use the gold or occasionally I'd on-sell it, but selling gold in real life was a pain. Amassed a massive amount of gold though. When I quit the game I just stood in the new player lvl 1 spawning area handing it out to everyone.

    • ronnknee on 17/02/2016 - 16:35

      Very clever for outsmarting the bots!

      • ChickenTalon on 17/02/2016 - 16:36
        +2

        I was playing WoW when I should have been studying for my statistics degree, specifically statistical decision making and game theory.

        I recon my trick should have counted for some partial credits :)

    • theguyrules on 17/02/2016 - 17:56

      Yeah I remember there were some bargains to be had when the Diablo 3 auction house first opened. Like I sold some junk for real money and made about $10 on the first day. I should have sold more stuff…

      • WT on 04/03/2016 - 16:23

        some guys were telling me to play d3 (while playing another game) they were making $500 per week selling random crap they would never use.

        Only lasted a few weeks though

  • glam77 on 17/02/2016 - 16:27
    +1

    I recall my dad telling us kids the story about the old GM Card in the 80s or 90s (issued by Holden and you would earn money off a new car for each dollar you spent).

    A that time my parents were building a house so they would prepay the entire amount into the credit card and then pay the house progress payments on credit card. (ie may have only had a $5000 limit but they would prepay $10,00s into it and then make $20,00, $50,000 payments on the card.

    I think i recall my dad saying he got $10k-$15k off a new car.
    The did challenge him on his process, to which he said there was nothing in the rules against it.
    They came to the party, but then immediately changed the terms and conditions such that prepayments into the card weren't eligible for earning the rewards.

  • love2buy on 17/02/2016 - 21:22
    +3

    Street fighter 2 arcade machine. Electric shocks to metal coin slot would add free credits.

    • dasher86 on 17/02/2016 - 21:37
      +1

      we would spin 5 cent pieces into the slot and if done correctly it would register as a $2 coin.

    • Mumbles on 18/02/2016 - 06:24
      +1

      Back in the day I would stumble upon a video arcade just after a Happy Hour or a birthday party. Usually there would be free credits in Street Fighter EX, King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive, Samurai Showdown, Dark Stalkers, Tekken, Marvel Super Heroes.

      I remember hearing about people carrying the electric shocker/car part but I don't like the idea of people using them because the high voltage could cause glitches and would damage the CRT screen and potentially burst the speakers.

      I wasn't the best at spinning coins but certain machines would give me double credits occasionally when spinning $1 coins.

      • blehgg on 18/02/2016 - 12:13

        they used to give out "birthday" timezone cards ~ where you could play unlimited for 2-3 hours on non-ticket machines.

        the thing is they would never expire the cards, so you could swap it with a regular card.

        I had a good 3 years of free tekken 3, street fighter vs xmen and King of Fighters

  • Wallyt99 on 17/02/2016 - 21:23
    +10

    I setup a website to pay cash rewards to people after capturing click through commissions from ebay and then never pay people! Genius!

    • j4ck on 18/02/2016 - 16:12

      HAH! Love it!

    • Neoika on 18/02/2016 - 20:06
      +6

      You may also need to hire a top player here to promote your website so that people believe in your business.

  • Sterio on 17/02/2016 - 21:45
    +1

    Back in the 90's american express had a promotion where if you referred people to amex you could be rewarded. I recall if if you referred 10 people you could get an ibm ps1 computer or 2 return tickets to Hong Kong. To refer the 10 people i simply approached poople at work and family and asked whether they had an amex card. Those that didn't i offerred to pay their annual fee of $60. There was no minimum time that the card had to be active nor minimum spend. So for $600 i got 2 return tickets to HK flying Cathay Pacific. Basically everyone in the company had a card and were in on the scam. Funny thing was i recall is the shit hit the fan with amex as they didn't forsee the scam and the costs associated with the promo (not just flights, but PC's, weekends away, restaurant meals at top restaurants) that it made the press because it cost amex a motza. Obviously someone in their marketing dept no longer had a job.

    • [Deactivated] on 17/02/2016 - 21:53

      What was Hong Kong like in the '90s?

      • grv on 17/02/2016 - 22:47

        I dont know . Not a single Bollywood song was ever filmed there in the 90s

      • SydneySwan on 18/02/2016 - 21:38
        +1

        It was very un-PC in the early 90s. Great place to live. It has changed a lot under the dead weight of mainland Chinese government influence.

    • Neoika on 17/02/2016 - 21:53

      AMEX still runs referral system now.Each referral generates 10k-20k points depending on your card.

    • ronnknee on 18/02/2016 - 09:18

      I recall if if you referred 10 people you could get an ibm ps1 computer or 2 return tickets to Hong Kong

      "Could" as in it was possible with some uncertainty or do you mean "would" as in that being part of the terms?

  • T-man on 17/02/2016 - 22:27
    +3

    For those who need to take an IELTS test for immigration purpose. In the reading test, if you see any TRUE, FALSE questions come with keywords: ALL, ONLY, the answer would always be FALSE. Don't waste time to think the answer.

    • racmike on 21/02/2016 - 15:52

      how? can you please explain?

      • lainey13 on 23/02/2016 - 12:19

        Possibly because there's always exceptions to English which makes it quite difficult to learn. So a statement that says 'all' would never be true. Just guessing btw…

  • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 18/02/2016 - 00:29
    +2

    Buying an insurance policy on your credit card, cancelling it within the cool off period, receive cheque back.

    I've never done this, but I'm considering doing it in future, so would like info from anybody who has. Basically I'm trying to find ways to run money through some CCs, and recall reading a long time ago that some posters had success receiving refund cheques for car insurance policies they'd paid for by credit card… Does this work? AAMI would be the one I'm considering…

    • OzJD on 18/02/2016 - 04:35
      +2

      If you get ahead in payments with most utility companies, they'll refund by cheque.

      • muncan on 18/02/2016 - 08:17

        Wow guys… we may have a faster way to reach the minimum spend for credit card FF bonus points!

        • ninja33 on 18/02/2016 - 10:18

          You could try with AAMI and see what happens - worse thing is that they simply refund back onto your card. You won't lose anything.

        • OzJD on 18/02/2016 - 14:37

          Just FYI: I've never done it to accumulate points, just always paid more than the bill in regular installments.

        • muncan on 18/02/2016 - 15:05

          @OzJD: I was talking through you to our ex^5 PM's eyebrows, and our FF point accumulating schemes. Sounds dodgy as hell. I like it.

        • T-man on 23/02/2016 - 10:33

          [@OzJD](/comment/3474149/

          For example, if my electricity bill is $200 and I paid them $500, so will they issue a cheque of $300 to my address automatically? Thanks.

        • OzJD on 23/02/2016 - 20:34

          @divious: No. Nothing is automatic. You need to request it.

        • T-man on 23/02/2016 - 20:37

          @OzJD:

          ok thanks, do they know I overpaid? And do they ask anything? or just issue a cheque to me.

      • JIMB0 on 20/02/2016 - 10:10

        How far ahead do you have to get before they issue a refund?

        • OzJD on 21/02/2016 - 08:34

          $1? They have to return money when requested as it's not their own.

        • JIMB0 on 21/02/2016 - 13:51

          @OzJD: Cool. So that is if you request it, but how much over do you have to be for them to automatically do it and also if you pay on a CC do they refund to that CC or can you get a cheque?

        • OzJD on 21/02/2016 - 19:02

          @JIMB0: they don't do it automatically. I've received cheques, but YMMV.

      • T-man on 23/02/2016 - 00:32

        How? Can you tell me more details? For example, if my electricity bill is $200 and I paid them $500, so will they issue a cheque of $300 to my address automatically? Thanks.

    • montorola on 18/02/2016 - 10:36
      +4

      Brb, gonna sign up as an 18yo male wanting to insure a Lamborghini

  • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2016 - 00:45
    +7

    New Woolies customers 10% off plus free delivery. But in my defense I have had a lot of visitors. Recently Bongo Dingleberry placed the order whilst in town, and I paid with my 5% off giftcard.

  • Mumbles on 18/02/2016 - 06:40

    After buying a car from a Used car dealer or private owner, my father would ring up an insurance company to ask for a 2 week "cover note" which would provide the new car with comprehensive cover whilst driving it home.

    Involves getting a telephone quote, request the insurer to mail you the policy for consideration, in the meanwhile ask for a temporary cover note. At discretion of the telephone operator the answer could be Yes/No and they might ask how long you need a cover note for.

    • theguyrules on 19/02/2016 - 08:51
      +2

      That's very typical.

  • Gnosh on 18/02/2016 - 08:28
    +27

    When at home watching TV with the missus I'll put something on only because I know it has raunchy scenes. When the show or movie is over she's normally in the mood.

    • montorola on 18/02/2016 - 10:34
      +4

      You sly devil you…

    • Twocupteabag on 28/02/2016 - 22:57

      You put the hole in loophole.

  • chatterbox on 18/02/2016 - 08:46
    +1

    Coles and Woolies use to have the big Fuel promotions until ACCC stopped them
    Whenever there was the 20c or above fuel voucher offer,(I have even got 45c off voucher) i use to get atleast 5 or 6 of them over the period and I use LPG for the car so i was paying about 30-45c a ltr of LPG
    Ofcourse they had a minimum purchase of $100.00, i use to get the most smallest and expensive items to make the $100.00 each time and then return it in a couple of days after using the fuel voucher. Since i had a Tax invoice it was never an issue. at the same time i collected so many qantas points as well from Credit cards
    Hope the fuel voucher thing comes around again

  • Ryballs on 18/02/2016 - 10:11
    +8

    I once managed to use a $3.95 fathers day special domino's voucher code a few months after fathers day.

    • altomic on 19/02/2016 - 21:26

      Are you a father?

      • Ryballs on 19/02/2016 - 22:35
        +3

        Yes I am… Why?

  • UncleCheapSteam on 18/02/2016 - 16:32

    Bought 2 bottles of wine worth $120 in total from BWS, the receipt had a coupon for a free bottle of wine worth $45.

    Refunded the bought wine, and redeemed the free wine from another BWS.

  • ieatcrackers on 18/02/2016 - 18:18
    +5

    Some stores will refund you if the price of the product you purchased drops shortly afterwards. Combine this with purchase protection on a credit card, and you can get a double refund!!

    This can be handy if you know a sale will be starting in the next few days, because you can get twice the discount. :)

    • Maki on 19/02/2016 - 08:31

      What do you mean by purchase protection? Does credit card company give you the difference if you find a lower price for what you purchased?

      • illumination on 19/02/2016 - 15:50
        +2

        Yea quite a lot of cards have this feature.
        How good they are varies. The common one is the price must drop by more than $75 within something like a 30km radius.
        28 Degrees is if the price drops by $10+ within 6 months anywhere in Australia at a store of the same name you can claim (e.g. JB Hi-Fi Perth are doing a sale on an item you bought in JB Hi-Fi Sydney, you can claim).
        Coles Mastercard is the same as 28 Degrees except it's within a 2 year period instead.

        • Little Miss on 24/02/2016 - 03:26

          Does this apply to the Coles reloadable MasterCard?

        • illumination on 24/02/2016 - 09:30

          @Little Miss:
          Haha no.. reloadable Mastercards/Visas hardly have any features.
          Even debit cards don't have many of these handy features.

  • Ryballs on 18/02/2016 - 18:32
    +9

    Using a member credit targeted giveaway as well as three different discount vouchers, I managed to get a $200 hotel room for $50 on HotelClub. We also managed to conceive during our stay and we had been trying for about a year. Bonus! =P

  • lainey13 on 18/02/2016 - 19:25
    +1

    I have a RACV card from when I was a member a long long long time ago. Kept the card, no expiry date. Very handy for RACV member deals, and Show Your Card and Save promos (includes discounts in other countries). Nobody every checks the validity of the card. Never mind I haven't given RACV money for about 10 years now…

  • supman on 18/02/2016 - 20:00
    +8

    It was year 2004 . I was in my 1st year at Deakin Uni.

    Every print out from Uni printers used to cost us 4 cents (B/W) and 10 cents (Color).

    My mate and I once noticed one day that if we print a document and delete the print job from print job queue straight away, the print still went ahead and we didn't get charged any money.
    For the 1st few weeks we used it to save $$ on printing.

    Soon we started offering "cheaper than uni" print service on the campus, heaps of students took notice and sent us soft copies of their notes to print out. We used to stay back till late to get printing jobs done and sold it to other students.

    It lasted only about 2 months as then I think they realised what was going on and fixed the bug, but we made about 500 bucks each. Fun times.

    • thefud on 18/02/2016 - 20:55

      It also worked if you changed the printer port to a direct IP, using a universal print driver.

      A mate printed a text book at Deakin from a PDF they got and then binded at the university print for a few dollars. Was a few hundred pages worth …

  • kyin on 18/02/2016 - 21:31
    +1

    Few months ago, Woolies had a sale on Vege chips - 2 for $5. Went to the self-serve checkout and scanned the 2 items, and the total came down to $0. Not sure if there was a glitch on the checkout machine or if it was a pricing error. Sad to say that I did not exploit it more afterwards.

  • imissbeans on 18/02/2016 - 23:33
    +5

    Not really a loophole but just before Christmas last year, The Art Series hotels had their overstay promotion where you check in, and call reception up in the morning at 8am on the day of checkout, and if no one checks into your room that day, you get to overstay an extra night. We paid for the first night at The Olsen and ended up staying for a total of 8 nights!!! It was awesome, though I did pay for car parking. If they run the promotion again next year, I'll definitely give it another shot.

  • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2016 - 23:33
    +8

    McDonald employee of the month, I think it was called the me time card.

    It gives 50% off up to $25, for anything anytime. I uses it everyday to buy meal with salad n water, to avoid obesity, it cost me $3 per meal.

    Everytime I buy, the employee ask, wow, how did u get it, which store do u work for?

    Surprisingly I got it from ebay…..

    • 0p on 20/02/2016 - 17:17

      How long is it/was it valid for?

      • [Deactivated] on 20/02/2016 - 22:35
        +1

        One year

  • Maz1 on 19/02/2016 - 00:30

    I have a $30 a month unlimited Optus plan. Day 1 I use $30 phone credit to buy runescape membership and riot points blah blah. Its basically me getting it free. :)

    • JDM4LIFE on 19/02/2016 - 14:13
      +1

      Pardon my ignorance, but how does this work?

      • Maz1 on 19/02/2016 - 16:13
        +1

        Okay well, once a month while grocery shopping I buy a $30 Optus credit thingo from the register.

        Once my current month runs out I activate that one and go to what ever I'm buying. Alot of places like runescape or league of legends have an option to pay with mobile, it essentially uses your credit so you can do it with any plan wether it be $10 or $100 a month.

        Because Optus use different things like; my data, calls, sms etc, credit is a different entity so you can spend the amount you recharged for on any item purchasable by mobile.

        I don't know if that explains it but I just found it while testing on the last day of my credits month and it worked, it was going to expire anyway so now I get free stuff.

        • JDM4LIFE on 19/02/2016 - 16:29
          +1

          I see, so its a $30 prepaid voucher which gives you $30 worth of spending's and essentially unlimited calls. Pretty cool. I don't think it would work with a post paid plan service though?

        • Maz1 on 19/02/2016 - 18:23
          +1

          @JDM4LIFE:

          Yeah I mean, its the amount I was spending per month for my phone plan plus free $30 for online stores with that payment method. As for post paid, I mean it depends if the plan is something like, $300 calls, unlimited sms, 1 gig data, $30 credit. If so I assume it will work.

          If not, I'm unsure as I've been on this plan for many years and never had reason to change. Couldn't really post it as a deal due to the fact that, its only really a deal if you already pay monthly for runescape membership monthly or whatnot as it was, because I'm essentially paying the same amount and getting free month to month plan on top.

    • josepet on 21/02/2016 - 23:00

      Can you tell me more games/webs that accept mobile payment? Thanks :D

  • Donaldhump on 19/02/2016 - 01:05
    +4

    I need to get something off my chest…. I cheated something shocking in UNI

    I applied for a job as a Sql Server DBA in approx 1999? I had to do an exam which was in a word document. I knew nothing about SS as had Oracle back ground. I went to recent document history and saw a good half dozen other people who had done the exam. I pilfered through who seemed the most intelligent and used their answers. I got offered the job, but had to decline for obvious reasons.

    also stole several uni assignments of temp drives, and putting student numbers in web urls to view javascript source etc.

    best one in first year mid semester exam there were two time slots, as 500 students. Went in 12-1 took 2 exam papers, wrote John Smith on first paper, and handed it in after 20 mins, went outside with spare exam paper and looked up answers, and went back in at 1-2 and did the exam.

    what a dam cheat i was… but hell i wanted to drink beer not study.

    finally got burned though, after cheating off dude next tome on multiple choice paper…only realised when handing them in every other person had questions in different order…..FML failed that subject

    • [Deactivated] on 19/02/2016 - 22:21
      +1

      Don't feel too bad, at my uni the department with the most theft was Law. Shameful students.

  • Ladsos on 19/02/2016 - 02:20

    When I get my insurance bills through, I do an online quote with the same company and it usually come out cheaper!
    Recently Coles had 5c cds! ive stocked up on a few wiggles ones.
    Sometimes when I put my bananas on the self scanners it scans as 5g for example, so I get my 4 bananas for a few cents…
    like using woolies online, usually get extra from the deli department, ie. pay for 500g of chicken and get 660g, sometime if they don't have what I ordered, ie. woolies nappies, they will give me huggies.

    • theguyrules on 19/02/2016 - 08:54

      Apparently woolies online always gives you extra for the deli stuff, and fresh produce.

  • battler on 19/02/2016 - 10:59
    +1

    1) bought some discounted gift vouchers, paid for 'product', returned 'product', got refunded in full

    2) opal card

    3) expedia brazil (I really miss that one)

    • realfancyman on 19/02/2016 - 18:24

      i thought you couldn't return gift cards tho

      • battler on 19/02/2016 - 18:54

        No, I returned the product that I purchased with the gift card

        • realfancyman on 19/02/2016 - 21:03

          oh that makes sense. smart :) Edit: wouldn't the money go back to the gift card though?

        • battler on 19/02/2016 - 22:15

          nup, cash, that's what made it a loophole.

        • realfancyman on 19/02/2016 - 22:58
          -1

          @battler: so this still works? could i do it with woolworths e gift cards?

        • battler on 19/02/2016 - 23:13
          +1

          Yes, would still work, but no, I'm not going to name the retailer where it happened to me. It wasn't WW.

        • JIMB0 on 21/02/2016 - 13:46

          @realfancyman:
          I've bought grocceries with a giftcard that scanned up at the wrong price, as per the scanning policy they had to give a refund which ended up being in cash (<$10) as it was easier for them. Still got to keep the item, 4c/L fuel docket and also got the bonus Woolworths $ for the >$30 spend.

          I returned a 4G modem to Officeworks which was purchased with a giftcard, they refunded onto a giftcard though. Nearly ended up with a OW only card instead of a Coles/Myer like I paid on.

        • ronnknee on 24/01/2017 - 19:00

          So are you this guy?

        • battler on 24/01/2017 - 20:57

          @ronnknee:
          Bad link

        • ronnknee on 24/01/2017 - 21:40

          @battler:

          Sorry, here.

        • battler on 24/01/2017 - 21:51
          +1

          @ronnknee:
          Yeah, not me, and certainly not as deliberate.
          I got hold of some travel vouchers on ebay/gumtree (hence the discount), bought some travel. Weeks later found cheaper price, so I cancelled original travel under free cancellation clause. I thought I would be refunded gift cards but to my surprise they refunded cash, so I ended up with more cash than I used to buy the vouchers.

    • 0p on 25/09/2016 - 18:49
      +1

      Whats "Expedia Brazil"

      • battler on 26/09/2016 - 08:10

        search ozb about 3 years ago.
        you could get half price qantas syd to singapore or bangkok if booked via brazilian expedia website.

  • jasonf001 on 19/02/2016 - 12:19
    +4

    Boots UK had $5 voucher cards (printed on paper), fortunately for me they also use self-serve checkouts. You were able to scan them multiple times in the same transaction and effectively get any purchases for free. You were meant to hand them in after use but self-service you could just walk off.
    They got me through 6 months in the UK without having to pay for food, cosmetics and plenty of other pharmaceutical items. Saved a fortune and passed them off to a friend when I left. He got them confiscated after about 6 months but found some more on Ebay.

    • nexus4 on 27/02/2016 - 10:45
      +3

      That's basically just stealing…

      • Usher9387 on 02/03/2016 - 08:46

        seriously, some of them need to learn what is morality and ethics.

  • timmeh15 on 19/02/2016 - 12:23

    Bought My Bus 3 Travel Tens and would catch Hillsbus everyday to work, as they were private operators so they didn't have the green ticket machine to dip it in so the bus driver would get a pen to manually cross the number of rides on the My Bus 3. After 10 rides, I would sell the used tickets to friends who catches public buses who had the dipper at a discount rate as the dipper didn't pick up the pen scribbles. My friend would always have an excuse up her sleeve saying it was her cousin scribbling on it if she ever get caught with it.

    • illumination on 19/02/2016 - 15:52

      Haha I wonder how well that excuse worked…

    • Gotchas on 20/02/2016 - 13:56
      +3

      The good old travel 20

  • cheapm8 on 19/02/2016 - 13:14
    +10

    A few years ago when Event Cinemas upgraded their cinebuzz program to include status credits i was booking sessions non stop using my existing cinebuzz points. I found the bug when i wanted to use my points to book a movie session, but to my surprise their new system was not deducting my points. I booked nearly $3k worth of movies for family and friends and about a week into my booking spree, their new system got even better for me as i started earning points for these bookings hahaha. Lasted about 3 weeks before they fixed it. I started out with only having enough points to two seats, but ended up with soo many points i was booking out rows of seats in one transaction. I think i was the first person in Australia to reached VIP status.

    • treeman on 25/02/2016 - 09:40
      +1

      They didn't try and cancel any of your seats?

      You could have booked out the cinema to yourself.

      • cheapm8 on 25/02/2016 - 11:03
        +2

        no seats were cancelled. In fact i was getting free physical tickets for asking them for a refund for the seats that i booked but left empty. It was a win-win-win situation hahaha (unlimited free bookings, earning points for free bookings, getting free tickets for refund of free bookings)

  • phreak on 19/02/2016 - 14:04
    +7

    At uni back in 1998, your account in the system showed your start and finish date for the course, and you could amend the finish date. Mine was 2002, my friend changed his to 2020 (highest value possible). When we got our student cards his card expiry became 2020. He's probably still getting cheap movie tickets and concession discounts now :)

  • dedb4bedtime on 19/02/2016 - 15:18

    I didn't do this myself but met a mature age student back in my uni days when I was getting my first ID card.

    For about 10 years he had been enrolling in the required courses to be classed as a Full-time student. Then before the deadline he dropped all his classes/deferred. By then he had his ID card renewed as a full time student so he could enjoy all the benefits of being a student, cheaper tickets, public transport etc.

  • The General on 19/02/2016 - 15:21
    +5

    I wrapped my Wife's birthday present with Christmas paper. Does that count? Saves a fortune especially when you pick up Christmas paper from the supermarket for 20c a week after Christmas.

    • tj101 on 19/02/2016 - 16:52
      +1

      We buy the plain Christmas paper ie red or green or with stars and keep it in the cupboard for any birthdays ect. We also buy the bows and ribbon and keep them in the cupboard. I also keep a stock of assorted cards, from the op shop where they are 20cents, for any occasion that pops up. Sorted valentines this way.

    • altomic on 19/02/2016 - 21:22
      +1

      I bought an industrial roll of Christmas paper from a garage sale in Richmond for 50cents in 1992. Used it every Christmas for 10 years before moving overseas. There is still half of it in my old room at my parents house.

      • muncan on 19/02/2016 - 22:14
        +2

        I'll give your folks 30c for what's left.

    • koplik8 on 02/03/2016 - 05:52
      +1

      I do this every year when they are mark the wrapping paper down. This year I notice that they didn't have any plain colours like the gold and silver. Maybe they are catching on

  • unfunkable on 19/02/2016 - 18:15
    +2

    When I was in uni 2001-ish
    I played a lot of D2 .
    Duping was rampart back then, and I actually looked into it…best thing i ever did.
    It was literally printing off money with a click of a button and selling digital items in the chat channel.

    If anybody remembers the ITH items, I was responsible for the type_sorc ith bow, it was one of the best bows at the time.
    In the end I made about 2.5k in a month I think..not bad for selling digital items.

    I wish I had gone larger, but I had no knowledge at all of programming as was pretty much just lurking forums on how to do stuff, and just being a copy cat. Capturing packets, modifying them, was all new to me.
    I heard the hardcore dupers/'hackers' 'pioneers' were making upwards of 50kUSD per month, and I don't doubt this for a second. I heard rumors, that the lead hacker, could actually 'tell' the blizzard servers to make him ANY items he wants, this was never confirmed though. But I remember vaguley seeing videos of some crazy stuff…crazy crazy stuff

    I remember seeing item packs on EBAY for hundreds of dollars, and people were actually buying them, as they were being listed in sold items page.

    • Hirolol on 22/02/2016 - 02:44

      ah the good old D2 days… shame D3 is nothing like it.

  • altomic on 19/02/2016 - 20:17
    +3

    I was an undergrad at Monash Clayton in the late 90s. I had different classes usually spread across the day which meant paying for all day parking which was expensive.

    On the first day of semester i paid for one ticket and then that night just scanned, photoshopped and printed out tickets for the days I needed for the rest of the semester.

    Not really a loophole as such.

    • [Deactivated] on 19/02/2016 - 22:27
      +3

      Good to hear, I got a ticket on Orientation Day even before the first day, as there wasn't a parking space to be found we parked on anything.

    • battler on 19/02/2016 - 22:43
      +3

      Ha, likewise, used to get a weekly bus ticket that printed on thermal paper from the machine in the bus. It had a one week expiry and just needed to be flashed in front of the driver each trip.
      Then figured I could buy a single on Monday, scan and photoshop the date forward 7 days, then reprint on thermal fax paper, cut/rip to size.
      Saved about $30/week…. for about a year :)

  • Sterio on 19/02/2016 - 21:26
    +4

    Colleague at work bought something from general pants. There was some sort of promo where you got a code for a future purchase. If memory serves me correct it was for either 10%; 20% or 50%. After receiving his code he tried the same one but substituted the numeric value to another of the discount amounts for example instead of deal10, he put in deal20 and it worked. The other one was the number first then the word i.e. 50 deal. After identifying all 3 codes there was more, in that you could stack the codes. Bingo 80% off goods online. So next thing you know a select few at work were cleaning up with jeans, converse chucks, Doc Martens at 80% off. It was crack up when the courier would arrive each day at work with all these boxes from general pants.
    But wait there was more. If something was not to your liking you could exchange it at any store. So the boots i bought were not to my liking so I went to the store for a refund. The invoice with your original purchase was for the full price not what you paid. Ending up getting refunded the full price not the discounted price. I knew i should have bought one of those Nixon watches that retailed for $600 at the time and returned it for a nice little earner.
    In the end i reckon they cottoned on when doing a month end reconcilitaion and found out that things weren't right. There were heaps more orders in process which were suddenly cancelled. Anyway, thanks are extended to General Pants.

  • battler on 19/02/2016 - 22:51
    +4

    This was a small yet elegant loophole I discovered and shared with fellow members a few years back.
    Every ozbargainer loves $2 bottles of good wine, delivered.

  • coco1458 on 23/02/2016 - 21:49

    I usually go to JB Hi-Fi and ask their staff on the lowest price possible, generally on tech products there's a mark up on them but it's easy enough as I ask them for the lowest possible price and for them to show me on their little device that the Mark up% is at 0%

    Gotten so many things so much cheaper than the advertised price

    • Usher9387 on 02/03/2016 - 08:54
      -1

      I do the same too, last time when i went JB Hi-Fi to buy my Macbook Pro(15), it was marked around $2880 but the techies offered 10% discount but i told them all i have $1450 in my card nothing more and they sold it for that price.

      • coco1458 on 02/03/2016 - 12:33

        That's actually a bloody good deal!
        I've found that officeworks has the lowest price on Apple products although JB can match it, sometimes beat it. They try to sell you on the extended warranty but Consumer Affairs has got your back, not really worth wasting your money on extended warranties

      • T-man on 02/03/2016 - 19:47

        Was it the last one or display model ?

        • Usher9387 on 03/03/2016 - 08:49

          My apologies, i supposed to say $2450.I am sure, its not display model neither last one.

        • imcold on 08/03/2016 - 17:35

          @Usher9387:

          hahah there is a big difference between $2450 and $1450

  • Mons1eur on 25/02/2016 - 16:15
    -1

    Got 6 months of Stan and SMH subscription on new Vodafone connection. Too bad Spotify didn't work for some reason.

  • [Deactivated] on 25/02/2016 - 21:40

    An online music store had a free $10 or $15 signup credit, and allowed all tracks to be purchased as an entire album or individually. The site allowed you to cancel your account and signup again with the same email address immediately after. I downloaded about $4-5k of songs that night. I found 2-3 tracks didn't work (were incorrectly labelled on the server), and sent them an email advising the tracks were missing and that I'd like it to be fixed. They weren't happy at what I'd done, but didn't fix it either….

  • goat on 25/02/2016 - 22:05
    +2

    Okay guys so a few friends and I figured out a loop hole with a betting company. they would give you a matched bonus bet with x amount deposited. the catch was that in order to withdraw the bonus money it needed to be turned over 4x. this is where the loop hole existed they allowed you to bet on both teams allowing the turn over be virtually guaranteed money. They also offered referral bonuses for each friend that turned over x amount of money. I did not get caught however they did eventually catch on to what we were doing.

    • illumination on 26/02/2016 - 17:32

      Haha when they caught on they just told you to stop, or they closed your account?

      • goat on 26/02/2016 - 22:24
        +1

        Nothing happened to my account no messages. An acquaintance of a friend had his bonus bet removed while completing the process and lost most of his deposit. It was when this happened that everyone decided to stop. Some of my friends made a few thousand out of this

    • juzz0 on 09/03/2016 - 01:55

      Matched bonuses are common and a feature of most bookies, was it for every deposit you made or just the first deposit? Bonus betting and real money bets on the same markets are banned by books for this very reason (doesn't stop you from going across books). However books trade information on clients and companies own multiple books (like Tom Waterhouse, William Hill etc.) So you will eventually get found out. You are playing a dangerous game as they may freeze your account if you have money still left in there for violating the terms of the bonus bets. I wouldn't call it a loophole just exploiting the fact that some books aren't across all punters betting on dual outcomes with real and bonus money. Hopping on public transport for free isn't a loophole just because the driver ain't watching.

      Many bookies also have clawback provisions in their terms of use so if they go over your trans history and see bonus and real money bets on the same markets they will immediately suspend your account and you might lose everything in it. If they just blocked you or closed your account and refunded your money you were lucky (but it seems got cold feet and got out after one of your mates was stung - lucky). I got blocked from bookies when I used to be into online sports betting not because I was arbing (even across books) but because I was a lucky mug who ended up a few grand on each book. Some books like sharps because they can follow them but if you are just a lucky mug (who bets live) eventually they will want you off their books as you are costing them money. Books routinely block people who they regard as 'abusing' promotions even if they aren't doing what you are doing, just for betting on them frequently (more than once a week).

      If you are into redeeming promotions best way of going about it is limiting your frequency so you won't get on the radar and definitely not violating the terms of the book. There are ways of creating weak hedges in combination with things like multi promotions on other books. For example a four way multi on favs which carries if one leg loses could be combined with small bonus insurances bets on outsiders in remaining matches could lead to a small positive outcome without violating either books T&Cs. Of course you need bonus bets for that strategy and an ability to access promotions on the other book. There is no such thing as a free lunch though and you would need to match betting levels on standard markets so you aren't seen as a specials wh*re.

    • shortgum on 09/03/2016 - 22:29

      I will not be surprise your account either end up limited or only able to bet peanut money n ban promotions soon after. then arbing is OVER. NSW VIC state is restricted the most on bonuses these days

      The best way to turnover any winning bonuses is to wait patiently then place different outcome bets on different bookies. e.g. williamhill n ladbrokes, palmerbet n ubet, tab n bet365, madbookies n luxbet, sportsbet n crownbet etc etc when available. not the own bookies, its just a self destruct method.

  • kiyz25 on 01/03/2016 - 19:28
    +1

    I miss the Expedia Brazil!! Booked nearly a years worth of flights! Best score was 5 return tickets Adelaide to Melbourne inc luggage for $190 :) then just over $100 return for 2 to Sydney a few times :) good days good days in deed!

  • koplik8 on 02/03/2016 - 05:47

    I do a lot of mystery shopping. There is one clothing store I do every couple of months. I buy gift vouchers when they are 20% off. When I complete the mystery shop the company pays me $17 for the job plus $10 for goods. I now own a heap of rugby shorts

    • Ash-Say on 14/03/2016 - 18:44

      Why don't you say you work for Personally Recommended and does myatery shopping of Lowes.

  • dein_gesicht on 03/03/2016 - 14:18
    +3

    Two years ago, my work installed a new HR system to show online payslips and where you can apply for leave. I noticed that my manager's screen would show the same information if I took 1 day leave or 0.5 day leave - let's just say that i still have a lot of leave left

  • Neoika on 05/03/2016 - 20:37

    I found a loophole on Ozbargain but I have not exploited it yet.I have seen some people play it really well.

    Here is loophole or just a trick to share:
    If you want to post a referral deal,you should never put your referral link in the post in the beginning.Many members will not upvote if it is a referral deal;Hence,lowering your deal's chance to become popular.And also Ozbargain has limit for referral deal posting.So focus on the deal quality and gather enough upvotes to the front page.You should only add your referral link when it becomes popular and jumps to the first page.Actually,you may get more referral credits than put it at first.If the deal does not get popular,you will not be limited to post another one.

    I have seen some top players doing like this for quite a while.Geniuses!

    • Moderatorneil on 06/03/2016 - 12:46

      That's fine as it accomplishes good deals with a bonus of rewarding the poster. You can put a referral link or code in anytime up to 7 days from posting. However, even if you remove the referral link or code, the post will still count to your limits.

      Deal Posting Guidelines
      Referral Posting Limits

  • jeeryos on 07/03/2016 - 00:37
    +1

    Not sure if youd consider this however tapping off early on with your opal card can be very thrifty

  • Ethere on 08/03/2016 - 01:36

    Few years ago when you signed up for subway mail subscription you'd get a free 6 inch sub with a bottle of coke or water, signed up each day during class with the fake 10 minute email, printed coupons and walked to subway during lunch, lunch sorted for a few weeks til they asked for I.D because I used it consecutively along with few other high school friends.

  • WT on 08/03/2016 - 14:26
    +1

    One of the places I worked at in my early 20's had a drink machine. he would open it in front of us and I figured out how to fake money going into it to get free drinks. I told a few others about it, but no one really fudged it unless they didnt have change and would just give it to the guy when he came in every week. I told him that we knew how to get free drinks, but he didnt care as we were mostly honest.

    Somehow the shit kicker found out and was ripping drinks off daily, along with our beers after work. He would drop 20c in the beer can instead of $2. I told the guy and soon after we got the upgraded machines that arnt easy to hack. Boo no more free drinks for me when I have no change.

    This is more to point out that your hack, that you think is really cool, can ruin it for the rest of us. Sometimes it affects the pockets of the little guys.

    I fired him the day we got the new drink machine, he had it coming to him and it was the last straw.

    • roddy84 on 09/03/2016 - 23:37
      +1

      That's not really a story about you finding a loophole and exploiting the hell out of it.

      Now if the "shit kicker" came on here and told us how he found a machine he could drop 20c into instead of $2 that would be more appropriate.

      His version would also probably be the day they eventually fixed the machine he quit.

      • WT on 10/03/2016 - 11:42

        He would probably leave out the bit about crying when he "quit" too.

  • JIMB0 on 14/03/2016 - 00:24
    +2

    I was buying groceries at the Woolworths self serve checkout, when it came time to pay the giftcard I had was 2c short of the full amount. So I selected split payment and used up the balance of the giftcard. This left 2c owing so I selected cash and tossed in a 10c coin. The machine then rounded down the 2c and gave me back the 10c coin. I've used this loophole about a half dozen times since but think my time is worth more than 2c for the 30 extra seconds this takes.

    If you have lots of items and heaps of time you could buy them one at a time to save even more. A word of warning though, don't try this at Coles as it crashes the machine.

    • argonide on 15/03/2016 - 00:47
      +1

      I've had this at Coles, total of $10.04, paid $10 on Flybuys dollars and it completed the transaction, it rounded down 4c.

  • pufffdragon on 15/03/2016 - 03:57
    +1

    Amaysim have a referral deal where if you refer someone, you will receive $10 credit and the other party will also receive $10 credit when they join up.

    I'm on a prepaid 90 day plan and normally pay $10 each top up to receive $10 credit. With this I pay $5 and receive $25 credit .

    So what I do is send a referral link to myself, join up from the link and pay the minimum $5 and use another name. The sim gets sent out and a few days later I have $25 credit which only cost me $5.

    This is good if you have two phones or a dual sim phone.

    • 0p on 15/03/2016 - 04:24

      Too dam specific mate…

    • neil on 15/03/2016 - 09:17

      The referral program has shut down as of a couple days ago.

      • pufffdragon on 15/03/2016 - 11:05

        Damn. Glad I got one last one in before that happened. Thanks for the update.

  • eccentriq on 01/06/2016 - 00:56
    +1

    During the Tiger launch of their Infrequent Flyer's program, they were offering $100 flight vouchers. Signed up 10+ email accounts on 10 separate browser windows/PC's and scored big time. Flew back and forth to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney all year at minimal cost. All my mates did the same…

  • realfancyman on 22/06/2016 - 21:14

    Definitely wouldn't say I exploited the hell out of this one, but it's good when eating out with a few people. When at a Hungry Jacks with one of those free re fill machines, buy one drink, and then ask if they could put half coke in one cup and half fanta in another one (can use any soft drinks). Then give the other cup to your mate and fill the cups up to the top at the free refill machine. Two drinks for the price of one.

  • Name on 16/07/2016 - 20:54

    Loophole (or perhaps more fraud than anything).

    If you travel long distances by train, sign up for a degree, get the student card and concession card, drop the degree before census date (so you don't have to pay for a subject) and you've got 50% off for 3 years (or however long in your particular state) before you need to renew.

    At full fare I'd have to pay around $25 a day, works out at about $6,000 a year. To sign up for a degree and go through the process, works out at around $100. Student ID would save you about $8,900 before it expires.

    Ticket inspectors have requested ID, they just look at the ID and move on.

    Translink tried to overcome it by introducing a third transport concession card which expires yearly. They've since scrapped it.

    • FirstNameLastName on 17/07/2016 - 14:19
      +2

      I thought about trying this (because I'm low-income and fares are ridiculous) but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

      The reason being, it means a student who actually wants to do that course misses out on placement, and so it's a theft of their potential.
      I couldn't take a dominoes voucher from someone's letterbox, so I definitely couldn't steal an educational opportunity.

      (just to be clear, I don't hold contempt for those who do this due to inability to pay full price fare.
      Fares don't work out in my area.. 4x more expensive and 3x transit time to use transport into the city rather than drive.. then you have to deal with anxiety over reliabilty of the system, and infectious diseases of your fellow passengers.. hopefully with driverless tech and renewable energies we'll be able to transition to something better in future.

      • Name on 17/07/2016 - 18:03

        Yeah, reliability of service is what killed me. I now drive. Costs more, but it means I'm home earlier more often, which is a big deal when you're spending 3 hours a day commuting and were often missing putting your kids to bed.

  • omgitzrick on 23/08/2016 - 10:30
    +1

    Target eBay deals. Wait for a 15-20% off, buy expensive item, take item with invoice back to local target, get full refund.

    Targets refund policy is pretty easy going. Paypal/eBay eat the discount. Win.

    • cwongtech on 23/08/2016 - 10:44

      Woah, be considerate and buy an expensive small item (iPod maybe?).
      Don't be the Big W eGift (7.5%) TV refund guy who got refused because he wanted to return it just to get an effective 7.5% back in cash.
      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/244304

    • kyttiekat on 26/08/2016 - 01:13

      This is a nice one! Never any drama in returning it? Does the eBay invoice list the discounted price, or just the original?

      • omgitzrick on 29/08/2016 - 15:07
        +1

        The invoice only shows the original price. No mention of any discount. Never had an issue returning anything, no questions asked.

  • Reggie74 on 26/08/2016 - 15:03
    +1

    About 5 years ago a local club my grandparents attended regularly had a promotion where every time you won $10 in the gaming area you received a ticket in a raffle with some decent prizes at the end of the month. My Grandfather worked out that if he put $5 on red & $5 on black (odds being 2/1) on the roulette wheel that more often than not he would not lose any money & gain a raffle ticket just about on every hit. There was the odd occasions where he would lose because 0 or 00 would turn up. At the end of the promotion my Grandparents had a heap of raffle tickets in the draw because of the system they had in place & ended winning a lawn mower, sound system, colour printer, pots & pans & blender. My Grandfather worked out that the total of prizes they won on that raffle was about $500 for a cost of about $50 (0 or 00 turning up on the roulette wheel).

    That promotion was never run again as we believe they worked out what my Grandparents had done.

  • noz on 25/09/2016 - 08:18
    +1

    I know this thread is now quite over, but have to mention the Time Out chocolate bar competition. Something like 1 in 5 bars wins another Time Out bar. The loophole I reckon was discovered at released by someone here on ozbargain. This person found that if you looked carefully you could tell if a bar was a winning bar by looking at the outside of the packet. A winning packet had a serial number printed on the inside of the packet, but it was printed/stamped in a way that you could just see it on the outside also. Needless to say that me and a friend went crazy with it. Amazing we didn't end up obese, teethless, or diabetic after this exploited promo.

  • cwongtech on 25/09/2016 - 18:31

    Free burritos for the price of a sim card :)

  • [Deactivated] on 29/01/2017 - 14:03

    about 20 years ago I put accidentally put a 10 cent piece in a poker machine, realising as I did it, and it registered as $1. I spent the night trying to change my money into 10 cent pieces, without drawing attention or losing the machine. I made about $500, the machine didnt do it again the next day - or any machine, ever again :(