Swapping barcodes?

[iago]

This is evil:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116174264881702894.html?mod=technology_featured_stories_hs

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!

[dark_drake]

What about the self-checkout stations at Wal-Mart these days?

[rabbit]

Target has them too

[Sidoh]

Target has them too

Most supermarket-like stores do.

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

[CrAz3D]

Target has them too

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

[Sidoh]

If the idiot had been more discrete about how and when he replaced the barcodes, he probably wouldn't have had a problem.

[trust]

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.

[iago]

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!

[Sidoh]

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.

[CrAz3D]

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

[iago]

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..

[Newby]

Because Canada is super gay!

[CrAz3D]

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.

[rabbit]

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.

[CrAz3D]

Our WalMart & KMarts both havea garden sections, thats about all the home improvement there is.  Target has none of that