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Hack: Identification of Winning Cadbury Medium Bars for Score a Freebie Bars Promotion

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This hack* is to do with identifying which of the 1-in-5 bars is a winning wrapper (or not) for the Cadbury "Score a Freebie Bars Promotion" that expires at the end of this month. Get in quick before all the promo bars are replaced with new stock!

Update: This deal/hack/promo has been just a tad popular (gee, thanks everyone!) and it may well be that all of the winning bars have already been taken at your local store. It has been reported in the comments that some of the larger stores/chains have either stopped redeeming bars or taken promo bars off the shelves entirely so you might have more luck at smaller chains or service stations.

This works for pretty much the whole range of medium bars, in approximate order of easiest-to-identify-to-hardest:
40g TimeOut
52g Cherry Ripe
50g Crunchie
46g Picnic
39g Twirl**
60g Boost**

ONLY the winning wrappers have a barcode printed on them on the inside of the wrapper. This barcode can be identified on the outside of the wrapper by looking for VERY slight indentations as in the attached scan (a thin red square has been drawn around where you should be looking). Reflect the bright store lights off the wrapper and if you are lucky the indentations will be visible in approximately the same place.

You have to buy your first bar (which are on special/clearance at the moment at most major supermarkets), but after that in theory you can redeem the winning wrapper for another winner carefully selected by yourself, ad infinitum.

As far as I can tell, posting this does not invalidate or contravene the terms and conditions of the promotion:
http://www.cadbury.com.au/Competition/Score-a-Freebie-Bars-P…

Enjoy!

*There was only a "Freebie" tick-box when submitting the deal, so I ticked that. If there was a "Life Hack" or "Other" tick-box I would have ticked it when creating the deal, my apologies to all the Captain Literals out there who have said this is not technically a bargain, they are probably right ;)

**Twirl and Boost are harder to identify unless you know exactly what to look for and have a really good eye.

Related Stores

Cadbury
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closed Comments

  • +2

    LOL this is one awesome post. How can Cadbury have been that stupid as to not realise it. Its not like its the first time running the promotion. Mars have been promoting free bars for almost 5 years already.

  • +7

    Try this: pick out a bunch of winning bars, go through a busy checkout, unwrap the first bar on the spot, claim free one, repeat ad infinitum with big show of clairvoyance - then at the end say to the assembled crowd - "Ok, who wants to invest in my casino consortium?'

  • +1

    Either that is a printing anomaly or all the winning bars at my local woolworths have already been taken.

    OH damnit, probably all gone. :—(

    • +1

      which woolies? if uve tried a shop thats already been cleaned out post it up to save others some time. im about to go on my run.

  • -6

    I had a winning picnic bar and it shows no evidence of a barcode through the wrapper - wish this post was true but having also looked at various bars in the 7-11 I couldn't see any showing a barcode through the wrapper

    • +1

      With so many others claiming they can see the markings on the wrapper, I doubt that you're doing it right.

      • and maybe the shop you went to didnt have any winners left at all. way to neg and get him suspended.

        • -1

          @calam - boohoo. It's hardly going to get him suspended if so many other people have given it a plus.

      • -2

        Lucky them - but my winning wrapper had no visible markings so I'm just speaking from experience

  • +3

    Enterprising! Someone is/was selling this hack on eBay for $10
    http://cars2.ebay.com.au/Cadbury-Chocolate-Bars-WIN-FREE-BAR…

    • +2

      It ended on September 17 so has been known about by others a long time before it was posted here.

      • Wonder how many he sold. You would have to really be into chocolate for it to be worth spending $10, and then if like me you can't see it anyway!

  • Had a look through the promo TimeOut bars this morning (at Woolies), there were 4 full boxes (~200bars) discreetly checked about 20 or so (from a fresh box), and no dice! None!

    I suspect the woolies staff have cottoned on to this some time ago, and have sorted, and repacked the bars.

    • -2

      Or this doesn't actually work

      • Quite possibly, but "cwongtech" (above), seems to have been successful : www.imgur.com/b22OK.jpg

        • +1

          Bloody hell! I take that back!

          • +2

            @baz123: Yeah it was fun :)

            The trick is to not look for any visible markings, but to look at the way the light reflects of the bit where the bar-code should be. you can see horizontal lines pretty clearly from the way the light falls. after stuffing up on our first bar. we accurately predicted winners 45+ times in a row without ever making a mistake :)

            • @stirlo: Good advice freakyterrorist,

              timeouts were all new stock so i couldn't check, but all the rest were still there, all had visible barcode from the outside, you need to really have a good eye and angle like OP and freakyterrorist say.

              • @Cripto: OP says boost is one of the hardest out of all of them, looks like you've mastered boost as well freakyterrorist, you should post picture instructions for us

        • It's not me dude, it's "Freakyterrorist" who has done it, I'll try today =]

    • If the Woolworths staff found out about the exploit … why wouldn't they collect the bars themselves? :P

      • Well indeed, I suspect they may have.

    • I found 3 winning TimeOut bars at Woolies town hall at lunch time today.

    • +1

      more like a cadbury rep has

  • +4

    Just like to point out that nobody is "losing out". It's just a win for Ozbargainers.

    Cadbury printed X number of free bars, and presumably, most of them would be claimed by the end of the promotion period. So it's not costing them any more.

    Those who buy the chocalate bars (and don't know this hack) will not be any worse off. They'll get what they paid for, and just be a little disappointed. After all, 1 in 5 are not fantastic odds. Somebody might buy 15 loser bars, and put it down to bad luck.

    • Nobody loses out except:
      the honest people going into the Melbourne 7-11 and having next to no chance at this promotion because the bars have already been plundered
      OR perhaps Cadbury who spend a lot of money on promotions, printing and supplying 20% free bars having their promotion considerably dented by a mistake.
      OR the retailers who may or may not have helped subsidised the promo in hope of increased sales (or Jenny Craig perhaps).

      After all Cadbury is a big company who cares if a 100,000 or so bars are taken off them.

      This isn't a freebie! it's an exploit and as such can be seen as somewhat less than honorable. It's not the way the promo was intended, so don't kid yourself even if it's only $2 a pop.

      And for the 'playing the field' stockmarket analogy, you can go to jail for insider trading :) so all those Woolworth's employees pilfering the spoils can go to juvie.

      • yeah, also note that the promo is ending soon, the free bars might go unredeemed without this.
        I find it hilarious that Cadbury ripped off Mars's free bars promo and they left this fault in, for that they kinda deserve for it to be exploited.

        I bet all retailers selling the bars would of been selling/buying them before the promo, I really couldn't imagine them getting them for the promo or anything.

      • Yeah, Woolies only employs juveniles. Good one. Also, sending people to jail is a great idea, why on earth don't we do it more often?

        This is pretty much the same as gambling - and there's a reason that the lotto is called the poor tax. It is a freebie and I'm not sure, but I think "honour" isn't really the in thing at the moment. The promo was intended to get people to buy more chocolate bars, and that will happen whether or not people win free bars. I'm not sure how many people buy one, win and then buy another one after that as well, if anything you would be more likely to buy a couple more if you hadn't won.

        No one is taking chocolate bars off of Cadbury and I'm not sure I really get what you're saying there - they run the promotion, they have the stock, they would never put more "Free" bars out than they planned on doing, so there is no way that we could be "stealing" from Cadbury.

        I don't think anyone is kidding themselves, but if you can win free bars, then why not at least win at winning…

        • I think you missed the overall point of the comment.

          The average age of a stockist at woolies would make them juvenile by definition, plus it was a tongue in cheek comment, with a smiley, seriously.

          What really concerns me is the fact that 'honor' isn't in and that part has been glossed over. No one will lose any sleep, I get that, but if someone rigs the comp to improve their odds without a doubt, than someone is losing out for those people to 'win out'.

      • IF YOU'RE NOT ON THE INSIDE, YOU'RE ON THE OUTSIDE.

  • +2

    Ahahaha, I love this hack. I'm greatly amused by it. If I spot a crowd of people around the chox bar section, I'll know they are OzBargainers. I didn't go out yesterday so I never had a chance anyway. Anyway I'm going to avoid the pre-fondled chox bars for a while. :)

    I'm ok with this hack, my reasoning is:

    1. Cadbury stuffs up concealing the winning bars.
    2. Smart person discovers how to identify the winning bars without any cheating.
    3. Retailers don't lose, they're compensated by Cadbury anyway.
    4. Cadbury should somehow compensate people not in the know who might think they they have a fair chance with the remaining bars and learn a lesson.
    • I would say Cadbury has a smaller profit because of all these - no one loses!!!!

  • whats the record for the most number of + on a deal?

  • Off Topic - The poor packaging technologist at Cadbury must be under some heat from management now! Companies do make mistakes on promos, but they learn for the next time. The last big bungle I can recollect was a couple of years ago when Pepsi ran the Bachelor Pad promo, they realised they had 3 winners for a $600K house. It turned out they were all legitimate caused by a bungle in the production process.
    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/24/1211183189534.h…

    An intersting comment from that bungle:
    VCGR executive commissioner Peter Cohen said it was important to ensure the integrity of such competitions.

    "This is a trade promotion lottery, so it's not gambling in the sense that people are risking something for the chance of winning something else," Mr Cohen told The Sunday Age.

    • And also the McDonalds Monopoly game case from like a decade ago.

      You can't differentiate the stamps from previous year's batch which meant the 'rare' pieces weren't so rare.

    • +1

      nah it's alright i've noticed before this hack was posted, lots of small businesses had new stock already. only supermarkets still have the free bars, and the promo ends this month. if this hack was released when the promo just started, it would be a bad.

      but take into account that retailers get reimbursed when the reps come in to collect the wrappers, and cadbury did this promo willing to give away x bars for x special wrappers. so if you think about it, it's not an exploit to make every wrapper a winner or anything. no one really loses except other competing customers; which is a tad unethical. but anyway i don't think the packaging technologist would be under much heat. this is small fries to them.

      • What does the promotional material from the company say, anyways?

        Does it say 1 in 5 has a chance to win?

        • +1

          yeah i think it says 1 in 5 bars is a winner or something

  • +2

    It's like the Tim Tam ad with the genie that grants a wish for bottomless packet. Thanks Genie…
    My local IGA didn't have stock of the promotional bars but Woolworths did. It's easy to pick out the bar code ridges on the front of the pack if you reflect the store lighting off the wrapper. GOLD.

  • This is balls I went to my local Woolworths on Cross Rd Adelaide and there wasn't a single one. I only quickly looked but someone must have raided them all…

    I lost out too…

  • ok i went to woolies CBD sydney and they only had like 20 left lol
    but anyway i tried to look for the bump but couldn't distinguish the bump and weird i won a free chocolate bar lol

    Im opening it and now looking from the outside, i really can't tell the 'bump' that supposed to be a winner.

    is there any tips on making it more noticable??

    • +1

      The trick is to not look for any visible markings, but to look at the way the light reflects of the bit where the bar-code should be. you can see horizontal lines pretty clearly from the way the light falls. after stuffing up on our first bar. we accurately predicted winners 45+ times in a row without ever making a mistake :)

  • +2

    It seems all the winning TimeOuts have been cleared from FoodWorks Newtown NSW

  • I got given a box of Picnics (don't ask how) and the 1 in 5 are winners is pretty accurate. I got 10 freebies from 48 bars.

    • let me put it this way for you, cadbury produces the bars with x bars with a win out of 5x bars. Therefore if you round up every promotional bar you will find that it is exactly 1 in 5 but with anything else (single stores stock) it is not exact and thus you may get more or less than 1 in 5

  • i tried this out today, checked out about 20-30 timeout bars at woolies and coles and no dice for me,ended up settling on a boost which i thought i may have seen a hint of barcode through the wrapper but no win there either. Still 99 cent chocolate bar :P

  • Got two free chocolate bars using this trick but then I got bored looking for free ones…

  • I can now say that this went very well for me.

    I went through all the bars, collected the winners and went to the register, bought one, and kept claiming until i had cleaned the store out.

    I then bought some peas to keep them cold on the way home, as you can't keep the wrapper once you have won.

    So i got approx 20 packets for 99c!

    http://imgur.com/KJGFA.jpg

    http://imgur.com/Zftl1.jpg

    Thanks Oz Bargain!

    • +3

      Lol at the peas.

    • Wow, thats decent I had to buy my bars for $2.50 to get started. How'd you manage to redeem 20 free in row? were you at a self serve checkout? or was someone serving you? If they were serving you they must have been really really patient :)

      • In regards to how i found 20, i just went through all of Woolies stock, and took all the bars that won.

        I was not at a self serve checkout. I went to the front counter, and basically all i did was open the packet packet, give it to the woman, put the actual chcoclate in plastic bag with peas, and open the next one. This went on till all the packets were gone.

        She was giving me funny looks towards the end though :p

        • So technically you should not have gotten any of them for free as you never made a purchase

          To enter, during the Promotion Period, consumers must purchase from any participating retail outlet anywhere in Australia, one of the following specially marked Cadbury products: 39g Cadbury Twirl, 46g Cadbury Picnic, 52g Cadbury Cherry Ripe, 60g Cadbury Boost, 40g Cadbury Time Out; 50g Cadbury Crunchie, (each a ‘Promotion Product’).

          • @anthony: I bought one 40g timeout at the start for 99c. I think i said that in my first post.

            "… to the register, BOUGHT ONE, and kept…"

  • This tip is no good, went to the Coles Supermarket in Bega this afternoon and the bars with the free promos had been picked through and scattered amoung the other bars on the shelf along the sweets isle.

  • +3

    Here's my community service project for the day, it sounds like a lotta folks here just might be needing this link real soon!

    http://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/

  • Ps. Don't bother at the hyperdome.

    wow what i said made no sense. heres the edit:

    Out of all the shops at the Logan hyperdome (kmart, big w, coles, bi lo, woolworths) woolworths is the only shop left that may have some winners. that being said, the only bars worth looking through at woolies are the boosts and a couple of twirls. I know the rest of the bars and all the other shops have been pillaged.

  • Why bother arguing about opinions… every can have their own.

    I just want to say it works, but i guess if i take out all the free ones, one of you going back will have difficulties finding one. =P

  • Pity some low lifes are 'smashing' all the loser bars as a way to keep track as they rummage through the pile…

    BTW went and got my 1 free Timeout… unfortunately the only bar type that they had left, who the hell eats those things anyway?! That was enough for me to enjoy the pleasure of hacking the system, exploiting it much more than that is a bit scummy IMO.

  • +2

    A friend of mine just bet my mate $20 to eat all of our TimeOut bars in 10 mins, he won it by finishing about 20 time outs in 9:15. He's probably going to go spew up now!!!

    • +1

      Be careful, he could become the great Cornholio; and may require TP, for his bunghole! :o

    • +2

      Well after eating 800 grams of timeout he wont need to eat for a few days

      Energy
      17680kj - 200% RDI

      Fat
      236 grams - 320% RDI

      Sugar
      416 grams - 480% RDI

    • +1

      Nice… twenty bars is about 4260 Calories. Assuming he’s eaten relatively normally up until this point, he’s probably consumed about 5,500 calories today. Which is probably about 3,000 more than the average male should consume in a day. So if he’s an average male, and doesn’t do any extra exercise to burn it off, then he’ll put on about 400 grams of fat today! And that’s without even eating dinner!

  • +1

    Just went to Woolworths Fitzroy (VIC), looked at it at all angles, felt it up and couldn't detect anything. Tried about 4 or 5 Timeout bars without success. Gave up and noticed Tim Tams were on sale 2 for $4 dollars.

    • the druggies and hippies probably beat you to it neil!

      • More likely freakyterrorist & his hyperglycemic mates! :p

        • +2

          Lol, I was the same, I went and only found picnic and cherry ripe (that had the promotion). I couldn't really tell the difference but in the true spirit of ozbargain I will be going back.

          • +1

            @chansthename: Whilst shopping earlier, I bumped into a couple of friends who've been doing this, they've gotten quite a few! Like FT & others, they've mastered it, they were showing me how in the store! ;)

            Pity it's a bit lost on me, I'm really off chocolate ATM coz I had a few too many Aldi 29c bars the other week! :(

    • I could only find timeouts that had the promotion and either my eyesight or the lighting was bad or none of them were winners. Doesn't matter, similar things at Aldi are 29c each everyday.

      • oh no … see StewBalls' comments … the Aldi 29 cent bars are very rich

  • +2

    My kids bought several bars in one transaction a couple of years back in the Mars promotion. When they won nothing they were really upset. My daughter who was only 9 at the time rang them and told them she didn't win even though she had bought 6 bars. They told her that it didn't mean that you would always win everytime you bought 6 bars but she argued that they shouldn't advertise that 1 in 6 win. Anyway they ended up sending her a gift voucher for Coles for $5.

    • That was a nice gesture from Mars

      • +3

        yeh mars is pretty good like that, when i was 8 i got an empty pack of peanut mm-s in a fun pack, they told me it goes by weight and i didnt miss out on any, i accepted that and hung up, but sent me a free $5 anyway.

        was over the moon as an 8 year old.

  • Tried at my local woolies and felt like a clutz studying chocolate bars. Because of the security cameras and other shoppers in the confectionary section I decided to give up. Do a time and motion study - barely worth it and I am a self confessed bargain hunter and chocoholic.

    • +3

      dude, how is the camera going to know if your looking at the ingredients or not? If your not stealing, you dont have to worry about anything, and guarentee you those customers arent concerned about what your shopping for

      • Modern camera systems detect unusual behaviour. I think standing in the same spot for several minutes handling all the stock may bring an alert to a camera operator

        • maybe if you shop at a small quiet store, shop at a bigger and busy one and you will have to do more than just handle the stock over and over to get noticed

          • +2

            @infernal_max: Plus, have you guys been to supermarkets lately??? There's some genuine weirdos out there!!! I think a few dudes pawing the chocolates would probably be fairly innocuous to them! ;)

            I went to woolies for a few snacks last weekend and two gay guys had a very nasty domestic in the soft drink/chip aisle! Very uncomfortable, let me tell you I got my twinkle-toes outta there real quick! :p

  • double post, sorry.

  • +1

    Best ever first post.

  • +1

    THIS IS AWESOME

    we went to the corner shop and it took me a while, but i picked one, and it was a winner :D

  • +1

    Worked for me! VERY easy to tell on the Timeouts!

  • Think about it… they aren't exactly losing any more bars than they previously expected (printed) so they aren't losing money… what the net effect will be is that the people that don't know about this have a much smaller chance of getting a winning bar… that is all.

    edit:

    you might say well people will buy more bars if they perceive more chance to win and if it is public that it is so easy to cheat people will stop buying them… but in argument to that I will say that the free offer will end well before the use by date of the bars so they will still be for sale… but you just can't redeem the freebies after the fact.

    The spanner in that is that it would be false advertising to sell free 1 in 6 if they deal is in fact over…

  • +4

    I think I did pretty well for spending in total only $7 ($2.50 * 2 for 7/11 - Cherry ripe and Crunchie, plus $1 * 2 for Woolworths - Boost, and I messed up once): http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4011/img6138q.jpg

    Basically all the stock is gone, though, so anyone who wants free bars should do it quickly.

    (Top post, by the way!)

    • (Top post, by the way!)

      But still not good enough to give a positive? :)

      • Excuse my neglectfulness :P

    • jesus, Quppa your mountains of chocolate look impressive, on par with freakyterrorist

      +1 for the photo

      [Quppa]

      http://tinyurl.com/26oy394

    • Pretty picture. :)

  • Does anyone know if woolies will let you interchange bar types - I had a crack and got a couple of timeout bars - but much prefer the Cherry Ripes and other varieties - I know the winning T8C's state the same type but does the bar code indicate the bar type at checkout?>

    • +1

      The barcodes are different http://i.imgur.com/b22OK.jpg

      • +1

        Oh my god. Are all those free bars Anthony? Just wondering, is this OP outline the read barcode box/indentation? I picked up about 15 bars and none of them had an indentation!

        • They are not mine, someone else posted the photo. It is on page 2 or 3

          is this OP outline the read barcode box/indentation? I picked up about 15 bars and none of them had an indentation!

          If you look in the OP's image you can see they have drawn a box where the barcode is.

          I can see it easily in the image but have not tried to get any in a store, I think they are too sweet and taste nothing like chocolate.

          • @anthony: not meant to, but some shops i went to today let me get away with it.

      • It's freakyterrorist's photo

    • -1

      .

  • +2
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