18 replies to this topic

[JeffTweedysFatStomach]

This thread is devoted to ways to work the system to your advantage. Which system, you ask? All systems. Government. I-Pass. Robotic customer service phone calls. Vending Machines. Best Buy. Your job. My job. Whatever. Propose new schemes, tell tales of old ones (successful and otherwise), just share. We're all being held down by THE MAN here, maybe with each other's help we can all shake his stifling grasp. I'll start first with a scheme I'm thinking of executing right now. Toys' R' Us' is currently running a buy 2 get 1 free video game sale. I plan on buying Fallout 3 for the xbox 360 in a few weeks and I've noticed that the game is one of the few new ones eligable for the deal. They come to 79 dollars a piece for the Collector's Edition. I checked ebay and see the game going for about 70 bones on there. I'm thinking I will buy 3 copies from Toys' R' Us', keep one, and sell the other 2 online for around 65 each. I'll be taking a loss on those two but will end up only paying about 30 bucks for a game I intended to buy at 70 anyways and the only additional cost will be the time it takes me to go to the post office and ship these bad boys off. What do you think? Here's another trick that most people on here probably know but some may not - When you're calling customer service and they give you the million step automated answering system just jam on that 0 button on your phone over and over. Those things have built in aggression sensors that will automatically shoot you through to a human being if they think you're going to get buckwild. This works 95% of the time.

[sKinnY]

i'm surfing the internet at work. scam and a half.

[velocity]

I like all the schemes posted so far, and have adopted Skinny's as my own. Next week my minion and I are going to visit our broker downtown and have lunch afterwards--coincidentally on a day when my boss is out of town. Because otherwise he'd want to go with and that would be a super drag.

[Finn McCool]

...just jam on that 0 button on your phone over and over. Those things have built in aggression sensors that will automatically shoot you through to a human being...

Is this true? Thanks very much for sharing that if it is.

Schemes. Hmmmm. Sometimes I like to walk a few blocks before hopping on the CTA, right? I usually walk north up State Street or whatever and then wander through Lincoln Park. I'll stop at this greasy spoon burger & hot dog joint first, though, and give the guys a few bucks for a bag of hot dog buns. I've been doing this for years. I'll shred the buns at the lagoon next to the Lincoln Park petting zoo and feed the ducks, geese, pigeons, etc. They're not even getting a hot dog, though!! Stupid birds.

[BobtheSquid]

...just jam on that 0 button on your phone over and over. Those things have built in aggression sensors that will automatically shoot you through to a human being...

Is this true? Thanks very much for sharing that if it is.

Yeah, that almost always works. I do it whenever I call a company with an automated phone tree.

[TJENZ]

...just jam on that 0 button on your phone over and over. Those things have built in aggression sensors that will automatically shoot you through to a human being...

Is this true? Thanks very much for sharing that if it is.

Yeah, that almost always works. I do it whenever I call a company with an automated phone tree.

used to be my job to put customers into IVR Hell (I was good at it). Where I was at, we knew that most people know about the "zero out option", so we didn't use it.

any place that still lets you do this, has morons running it's telecom dept.


Scheme I am waiting to execute:
It's just a matter of time until they start using the Ipass to issue speeding tickets.

Have more than one Ipass. Swap them out everytime you go through a toll.
It will take me three Ipasses to get to work, but it will be worth it to not have to go 55 mph.

[Finn McCool]

IVR

What's this now?

[TJENZ]

IVR

What's this now?

interactive voice response

or phone tree hell

press one for this, press 2 for that, you'll never figure out what to press to talk to a real live human. If you do, they'll be in Inida and have no idea what you're talking about.

[Vivian Darkbloom]

My favorite scheme of late was a few years ago at the Superbowl in Vega$$. We go out every year for my sister's anniversary (she eloped there the year of Denver-Falcons). So in Vega$, to watch the big game with a crowd, you generally need to reserve a spot in some lounge where you pay $50 for dry buffalo wings and all the beer you can drink. Much better to order subs and pizzas to your room and drink/ blaze in your room. Except the TV's at the Sahara are lousy, and there aren't enough chairs. We have this friend who is the ultimate dissatified customer dude. He can talk his way up the rungs of any customer service pyramid and get what he wants. So we didn't bat an eyelash when he proposed going to Best Buy and simply buying a $3800 projection TV system, borrowing a handcart from the Sahara front desk, and wheeling it up to our suite in the Alexadria tower. We keifed some extra seats from the Casbar Lounge. And at the end of the 4th Quarter, our friend casually wheeled that thing back to Best Buy, barely stuffed back into its box, and squawked loud enough at a hapless series of floor managers for long enough (some bullshit about how he just got a new job and their new apartment wasn't big enough to accommodate the "home theater" he had originally bought the TV for) that they finally credited his card 100% and we spent the rest of the night howling about it, drinking leftover Heinekens (also stolen from the Casbar) and peeing off the balcony.

[ryan]

tell tales of old ones

Before just about every venue started using the barcode on Ticketmaster tickets, I'd often call TM the day before a show and tell them that I hadn't received my tickets, when, of course, I did. How they didn't flag my account or something is an absolute mystery, but I gamed the system at least 20-30 times doing this. They'd have my name on the will call ticket list after my complaint and I'd walk up to the venue, ticket(s) in hand, sell them for less than face, or maybe just give them away. Not once did this backfire. I'd almost always see the folks I had sold/given the tickets to inside, because I'd only pull the scam at smaller venues that I knew wouldn't be using the scanner -- I didn't want to screw anyone, besides TM.

[M_Rots]

I've been working on a scheme to make failure pay. It isn't going well.

[Finn McCool]

We have this friend who is the ultimate dissatified customer dude. He can talk his way up the rungs of any customer service pyramid and get what he wants.

We need this fella to call TJENZ immediately. What's his name? And TJENZ, what's your phone number? Your work one, I mean.

You pee'd off the balcony? That's nasty. Unless you were peeing into a little bucket or something on the ground, I guess. That'd be OK.

[ryan]

Rock on, Vivian. Man, I've peed off (and on) just about everything, but I suppose that isn't a scheme, so I'll leave that one be.

[Vivian Darkbloom]

My all-time favorite scam story among my friends comes from the legendary Dan B. Dan B. is this unbelievably charismatic good-looking dude among our friends who is a totally creepy snake oil salesman. He is a total grifter and a pathological cheat and a liar, but he's also done some pretty undeniably incredible stuff. On a dare, he and a buddy once climbed all the way to the top of the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge with a case of PBR and did shots of tequila while they took turns doing handstands off the guardrail stanchon.



I would have never believed this story, but local news covered pictures of their felony arrest for trespassing on district property and the Chronicle covered it in follow-up news stories. He got off with probation.

Dan B. is also the guy who gets into concerts, movies and sporting events completely free EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. He just does this Jedi Mind trick stuff...."you don't need to see our tickets." For Cal games, he'll use old raffle tickets, hand them to the taker, and then bolt through, never to be seen. Even if he has tickets, he'll do things like load up an old backpack with three cases of beer, and then hammer throw it over a security fence to his helpers waiting on the other side.

So for the 1997 NFC Championship Packers v. 49ers game about ten years back, there was little question Dan B. would get in somehow. Tickets were going for thousands of dollars a piece through brokers and scalpers. Dan gathered up a posse of three of his friends, loaded up a huge fish cooler with Coors, laminated a fake concessions ID, and walzed through the ground level service entrance with his usual cocky confidence and simply said "Hi, Dan B., four for concessions. The security guard figured they had a cooler of grub for the stands, and waved them through. They continued this trick through four checks until they literally WALKED OUT ONTO THE FIELD, where they stood pounding cans of beer and high fiving each other for a full three quarters before getting thrown out.



I didn't believe that one either until his brother showed me an old videotape of the TV coverage, and you can actually see Dan drinking a beer directly behind the 49er sideline!!!

[Ted Falconi]

I skimmed Viv's post before I read it and caught the words "friend", "grifter" and the graphics and my initial thought was "Holy shit, he's friends with that guy who pretended to be Joe Montana and scammed those women in Kansas!"

[Kate]

Nobody will have a story that will top Viv's/Dan B's. Those are awesome/scary.

[Finn McCool]

Nobody will have a story that will top Viv's/Dan B's. Those are awesome/scary.

What!? There were no hot dogs in those buns, woman! It was just bread!

[Kate]

OK Alan. You're so crazy! I can't believe you throw hot dog buns to the geese! edit: I take back my above statement about nobody topping Viv. I forgot about the legend that is Freddie Freelance. I'm sure he's got something good. Probably not as good as Alan and the hot dog buns, but it might be close.

[Vivian Darkbloom]

edit: I take back my above statement about nobody topping Viv. I forgot about the legend that is Freddie Freelance.

I deliberately tried to emulate his tone in my post, seriously, as Dan B. is seriously on some Freddie Freelance-level shit.



We're not worthy, Freddie, we're not worthy!!!