Author Topic: Swapping barcodes?  (Read 6604 times)

0 Members and 4 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline iago

  • Leader
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17914
  • Fnord.
    • View Profile
    • SkullSecurity
Swapping barcodes?
« on: October 25, 2006, 07:31:35 pm »
This is evil:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116174264881702894.html?mod=technology_featured_stories_hs
Quote
Over six months in 2004, Thomas Westwood, his wife, Jennifer, and mother-in-law, Kathleen Dodson, worked the bar-code scam at Target stores. Using a computer, they scanned bar codes from relatively inexpensive Target items and printed out copies. Then they returned to the store and pasted the fakes onto expensive Dyson vacuum cleaners, DVD players and phones. Cashiers dutifully rang up the wrong prices.

All told, the trio stole more than $100,000 of merchandise, law-enforcement officials say. After a cashier in one store noticed a mispriced item, Target investigators got involved and discovered a pattern of such mispricings. Using video clips, they identified suspects, and the police moved in. Earlier this year, the trio pleaded guilty in a Missouri federal court to conspiracy to commit fraud.

Last December, a Target security guard nabbed a Colorado college student after he purchased a $150 iPod that carried a bar code for $4.99 headphones, according to Mr. Brekke. The thief had fashioned the fake label with a $25 software program called Barcode Magic, which he'd downloaded from the Internet, Mr. Brekke says.

Bar-code swindlers are hard to catch, says Mr. Brekke, a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If an alert cashier points out that a bar code is ringing up the wrong price, the thief can either pay the difference or just say he doesn't want the item any more and walk out. "The risk level is very low," he says.

Mr. Brekke has been trying to persuade manufacturers to print prices on boxes or come up with bar codes in assorted sizes, which would be trickier to substitute. In the meantime, Target's loss investigators have begun to monitor sales reports for unusual patterns, trends and anomalies.

In the summer of 2005, they noticed spikes in sales of Legos. Expensive sets were being sold for a pittance. They studied hundreds of hours of surveillance tape, then devised an electronic system to alert in-store antitheft workers when big batches of Legos were rung up.

That's what happened last Nov. 17 at a Target in Hillsboro, Ore., but the security guard got the message too late. Mr. Swanberg had already made his fraudulent purchase and left, according to Mr. Lesowski, the prosecutor. The guard warned co-workers at nearby stores.

Later that day, an employee at a Beaverton, Ore., Target spotted Mr. Swanberg loading his cart with about 10 $100 Star Wars Millennium Falcon Lego sets. He slapped a phony bar code for a $19 Lego set on the top box and headed for the youngest looking cashier he could find, the prosecutor says. The cashier scanned the top box and multiplied it by the number in the stack.

Several burly Target employees surrounded Mr. Swanberg's cart, which he shoved at them in an effort to get away. They tackled him and summoned the police. In his van was a detailed daily itinerary for Target, Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us stores he planned to hit, the prosecutor says.


I think it'd be fun to print a pile of fake UPC codes, and distribute them around the store.  Higher and lower than the normal price, who cares?  Great way to screw up the store and the people! :P

Offline dark_drake

  • Mufasa was 10x the lion Simba was.
  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2440
  • Dun dun dun
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2006, 08:16:06 pm »
What about the self-checkout stations at Wal-Mart these days?
errr... something like that...

Offline rabbit

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8092
  • I speak for the entire clan (except Joe)
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2006, 08:20:15 pm »
Target has them too :P

Offline Sidoh

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17634
  • MHNATY ~~~~~
    • View Profile
    • sidoh
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2006, 08:45:04 pm »
Target has them too :P

Most supermarket-like stores do.

Barcode software for $25?  Barcode generating isn't difficult.  What a ripoff. :(

Offline CrAz3D

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10184
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2006, 08:51:49 pm »
Target has them too :P

Most supermarket-like stores do.

Barcode software for $25?  Barcode generating isn't difficult.  What a ripoff. :(
lol, agreed.

I've always thought itd be rather easy to to not screw up stealing like that, I guess I've been proven wrong

Offline Sidoh

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17634
  • MHNATY ~~~~~
    • View Profile
    • sidoh
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2006, 08:54:44 pm »
If the idiot had been more discrete about how and when he replaced the barcodes, he probably wouldn't have had a problem.

trust

  • Guest
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2006, 09:09:48 pm »
They removed self checkout from most of the stores here. I guess they weren't being used enough. Also, the Super Walmart in my city has self-checkout but it requires an employee validation. They are building another super walmart a few miles from my house so I'm curious to see how they implement it there.

Offline iago

  • Leader
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17914
  • Fnord.
    • View Profile
    • SkullSecurity
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2006, 09:15:37 pm »
They have "super walmarts" now?  Scary!  We have a chain called "Super Store" here (we call them "stupid store"), but they have too much, it just becomes too inconvenient. 

But yeah, why even make your own barcode?  Buy a box of pencils and photocopy it with a good copier.  Done!

Offline Sidoh

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17634
  • MHNATY ~~~~~
    • View Profile
    • sidoh
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2006, 09:21:05 pm »
They have "super walmarts" now?  Scary!  We have a chain called "Super Store" here (we call them "stupid store"), but they have too much, it just becomes too inconvenient. 

But yeah, why even make your own barcode?  Buy a box of pencils and photocopy it with a good copier.  Done!

Yeah.  I've seen Super Walmarts around for a long time.

Offline CrAz3D

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10184
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2006, 09:52:39 pm »
They have "super walmarts" now?  Scary!  We have a chain called "Super Store" here (we call them "stupid store"), but they have too much, it just becomes too inconvenient. 

But yeah, why even make your own barcode?  Buy a box of pencils and photocopy it with a good copier.  Done!

Yeah.  I've seen Super Walmarts around for a long time.
We got our first super walmart...10? years ago.  We got our second one about 4? years ago.  We have a Sams Club that is about 6? years old.

We're a town of maybe 85k people or so

Offline iago

  • Leader
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17914
  • Fnord.
    • View Profile
    • SkullSecurity
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2006, 09:54:51 pm »
I'm in a city of about 700k people, and we have lots of Wal-marts, but none of them are (at least, as far as I know) "Super Wal-marts" -- what's the difference?  Maybe Canada isn't as into the idea of Super stores..

Offline Newby

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10877
  • Thrash!
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2006, 09:57:09 pm »
Because Canada is super gay! :)
- Newby
http://www.x86labs.org

Quote
[17:32:45] * xar sets mode: -oooooooooo algorithm ban chris cipher newby stdio TehUser tnarongi|away vursed warz
[17:32:54] * xar sets mode: +o newby
[17:32:58] <xar> new rule
[17:33:02] <xar> me and newby rule all

I'd bet that you're currently bloated like a water ballon on a hot summer's day.

That analogy doesn't even make sense.  Why would a water balloon be especially bloated on a hot summer's day? For your sake, I hope there wasn't too much logic testing on your LSAT. 

Offline CrAz3D

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10184
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2006, 09:58:08 pm »
I'm in a city of about 700k people, and we have lots of Wal-marts, but none of them are (at least, as far as I know) "Super Wal-marts" -- what's the difference?  Maybe Canada isn't as into the idea of Super stores..
super walmarts, greatland targets & super kmarts have grocery stores inside of them...i think thats the only main difference.

Offline rabbit

  • x86
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8092
  • I speak for the entire clan (except Joe)
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2006, 10:03:38 pm »
They tend to be in lesser populated places (IE: in the burbs), where land is cheaper.  Basically, at least with Super Kmart, there is the standard Kmart, and then a grocery store, and the "home improvement" section is kind of like a mini-home depot, instead of like, 2 aisles or whatever.

Offline CrAz3D

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10184
    • View Profile
Re: Swapping barcodes?
« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2006, 10:12:17 pm »
Our WalMart & KMarts both havea garden sections, thats about all the home improvement there is.  Target has none of that