A Nebraska woman allegedly found a lucrative quirk at a gas station pump — double-swipe the rewards card and get free gas!
Unfortunately for her, you can’t do that, prosecutors said. The 45-year-old woman was arrested March 6 and faces felony theft charges accusing her of a crime that cost the gas station nearly $28,000.
Prosecutors say the woman exploited the system over a period of several months. Police learned of the problem in October when the loss-prevention manager at Bosselman Enterprises reported that the company’s Pump & Pantry in Lincoln had been scammed.
Sorry but how is this not on the system, let alone a crime?
This slope is slick, if she is guilty of theft due to a system error then whats to stop them from saying the price you bought something at was an “error” later?
And lets face it, swiping a card 2 times breaking your system tells me that you should get better QA not charge someone.
I mean if the pump is set up not to force you to pay before pumping gas and you just pump gas and leave that’s obviously theft.
They’ll prove that she knew what she was doing. They’ll prove she knew that she was supposed to pay for the gas. They’ll prove that she did the double swipe to get the gas. But probably more damning, if that $28,000 figure is right in 6 months she wasn’t just getting herself free gas.
It’ll be interesting to hear more details like do they know that it was her every time and not other people. If she told other people how to double swipe and get the gas that’s probably fine. Maybe she was giving other people her card and instructions on how to do it that’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in court if she doesn’t settle.
Settle? this is a criminal case not a civil one. Maybe they will plead to something lesser, but ether way it is very bad precedent.
The issue here, is that someone took advantage of a broken pos system and now they are being charged. If this stands you now have the base to potentially charge anyone who uses a broken piece of tech, and tech is getting crappier and crappier by the day.
It does not matter if she took advantage or what the motive was. The underling issue is that now users can be on the hook for bad products. That is terrifying.
If it was a once or twice or even occasional thing, you have a point - but if she keeps going back and doing it constantly, rather than alerting the owner/management of the issue, and ends up making off with $20k+ that’s when it crosses the line into theft.
That is the risk, there should not be a line where using a system crosses into theft. The odd part of all this to me is where is the culpability of the gas station in this?
What about the reverse? Exploiting a security vulnerability and getting access to sensitive data that you then use for financial gain shouldn’t be a crime? Going into a house with poor quality locks and stealing things?
I’m not trying to side with big corporations here but I think you’re getting the precedent issue the wrong way around. If the actions of that person weren’t a crime, it’d be a bigger problem.
The underlying issue, that people are pushed into theft out of desperation, is far worse. I make no moral judgement of this person because I don’t know their circumstances. But I don’t think whether it is a crime or not can really be debated.
The action in question is double tapping a rewards card, at some point a security vulnerability is so bad it is negligent. I find it odd that no one is pointing out she followed the prompts on the screen when making these analogies. A better example would be having a site show you sensitive data (like say the fallout 76 bag scandal, or the sony one) and then claiming the fault is solely on the person who saw the data. I can see other charges then theft maybe, but the liability here can not just be on the person.
We are currently debating whether or not a crime has been committed so, yes it can.
She didn’t just double tap the card, she knowingly put it into demo mode. At that point you’ve gone beyond ‘oops, mistake’ territory into ‘actively screwing with the system’. On top of that, she was doing it for a profit.
This is why we have jury trials.
I would love to hear about the pool selection in this case.
Look into municipal sites. Try to find the arrest date to find her case. Check back regularly. I’d assume Voa Dire isn’t on the record but IDK.
“You didn’t stop me stealing from you, how is that my problem.”
-Every banker in 2007.
If I make a self serve machine and tell everyone to use it who’s responsibility is it to ensure it’s functionality? The customer?
This would be I think more like if a staff member was not charging for gas to turn all the blame on the customers who benefited.
There’s no change to the expectation in this transaction… “I swiped my card twice, it broke the process that is supposed to happen, the proprietor does not know that this is happening, I’m not going to tell them, I guess I can just exploit this forever with no ramifications”. What’s that? The security barrier in this shop is broken? I guess everything is free now.
This happens once, that’s an oopsie freebie, you do this every time for months then that is a pattern of criminal behave. You don’t just get to take stuff because the process has broken down, and any company has the explicit right to seek recompense from you.
What kinda Kirkland brand minority report is this?
I am not saying she was not taking advantage of this flaw, but the flaw is so bad that I can not in good judgment pin her with theft. Fraud? Maybe. You also have to be careful with legal responsiblity here as it could set a dangerous legal expectation.
She was literally arriving, taking a product, knowingly not paying for it, and leaving… for months. Maybe she should also be facing a fraud case for various misrepresentations, but she clearly stole and that is most logical slam dunk of a route for the prosecutors to take… the act is verified, the guilty mind is pretty identifiable. I guess we’ll have to see how her legal team frames things.
It comes down to intent. The reality is that she probably knew that what she was doing was wrong. I mean, come on, do you really think she thought she was supposed to get 7000 gallons of free gas? We aren’t talking about her doing it once and not realizing it.
We can debate whether she should be held accountable, but there’s no slippery slope here and let’s not pretend that she is some innocent victim getting swept up in the whims of some evil corporations trying to trick people so they can send them to jail. She stole gas and she knew it, and probably thought that she could get away with it.
Where did anyone say this person was an innocent victim? No one is debating she took advantage here, the issue is no one seems to be putting any culpability on the company who made the pump. The issue here is a slippery slope as it expects a duty to report the error from her that should not be there legally. I could see some other charge like fraud be appropriate maybe, but theft is such a bad thing to charge her with.
Explicitly? Nowhere. But for this to be a slippery slope to innocent victims being held criminally accountable for malfunctioning technology, she has to be.
Is this a joke? This comment section is awash with people saying they fucked up, so she had the right to take advantage of it. I sidestepped this question intentionally, and specifically addressed the claim that punishing her for this would almost inevitably lead to actual innocent people being punished.
She’s not being held legally responsible for not reporting it, she is being held responsible for it for exploiting it to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of gas.
No she does not have to be an innocent victim for this to be a slippery slope, this is just false equivalency.
Ah, I did not realize they charged the company with a crime. Oh they did not?
That is functionally the same thing, if she did report it after the first time I am sure no harm no foul. But if she did not report it in your eyes it is now theft (remember she stumbled upon this). If you think about this critically the number of times should not change the nature of the act.
Could you explain what the false equivalency is? I can’t make any sense of what you think it might be.
You think they should be held liable for making a mistake and being taken advantage of? This is blaming the victim.
I started my initial post by very clearly stating “It comes down to intent.” The claim that I’m equating one who accidentally benefits from a glitch, to someone intentionally exploiting it over the course of months to steal tens of thousands of dollars, is ridiculous.
I do think people have the moral obligation to help someone out if they make a mistake and are vulnerable to being taken advantage of, but I certainly do not think someone should be held criminally liable for not alerting someone/something to their mistake.
Her being innocent or not has nothing to do with the issue of setting a bad precedent in this case being a slippery slope. If using the provided pump software with provided rewards card (granted in a way not foreseen) can be considered theft then the slippery slope is what else can be considered theft.
Yes, they should be held liable. And then hold the makers of the pump software liable in turn. This should be a civil case between companies not a criminal case against a customer.
I agree that there might be a case for something else (conversion, fraud, conspiracy), but this is once again where that slope comes in. Relying on proof of intent is problematic to say the least. And yes the line of whats a whoopsy vs whats theft will come up if this goes forward. This is not ideal.
None of this has to do with a false equivalency. Are you sure you know what the term even means?
They made a mistake and their mistake didn’t even harm anyone. What on earth would they be liable for?
Holy shit. You have no idea how our legal system works. It’s innocent until proven guilty. You don’t have to prove there was no intent, they would have to prove you did have intent.
This is moving the goal posts. We’re talking about it being a slippery slope from her intentionally exploiting something to steal tens of thousands of dollars of gas, to someone accidentally benefiting one time from a glitch in a system. What counts as a violation of the law is part of the system, which is why we have trials with a “jury of your peers” to determine whether or not you crossed the line. Is it ideal? Of course not. But it is reality.