While it might seem like cheating, the truth is that loopholes in anything from game rules to laws exist only because someone didn’t do their due diligence. As they say, don’t hate the player, hate the game, so it can be entertaining and even illuminating at times to find out strategies netizens have used.
Someone asked “What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?” and people shared their best examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own thoughts and examples in the comments below.
#1
When i was in college a guy actually bought a calculator ($30) from the bookstore and just pressed the buttons through the plastic packaging and returned it at the end of the semester.
Image credits: anon
#2
My college didn’t put any dates on our Student IDs. No graduation year, no expiration date, nothing. As a result, I kept using it to get student discounts for YEARS after I graduated, mostly the 15% off J. Crew discount.
Image credits: vabhj
#3
There’s a Jack in the Box right near me. When you buy something, you get a link to a survey for three free tacos. When you get the tacos, they give you a new receipt with a new survey code.
Infinite Tacos.
Image credits: digikun
#4
Early on in Minecraft, if you dug a hole straight down, go into the corner, and used 3rd person to look in just the right direction, you could see through the block texture. the result was you could see things like caves and lava pits really easily, which was key to finding good ore back then.
We called it “Prospecting”. It was eventually patched out.
Image credits: Razorray21
#5
Back in college I had a thirty day trial for some software. This was back in the early 2000s when that stuff wasn’t quite as sophisticated. I found that if I kept changing my computer calendar back before opening the program, it would think I was still within the initial month. I did this for years.
Image credits: anon
#6
Papa John’s had an online coupon which could only be used once but by changing the URL you could print new coupons. Would take me 20 seconds to find an unused code and free pizza time. After about 10 free pizzas the manager called to ask how I was getting so many codes so I quit.
Image credits: braaibros
#7
Back in the 90s I figured out if you dialled 14711471 on a pay phone it gave you an open line without needing any money.
Free phone calls for me 😀
Which was useful because I lived miles away from my friends and liked to chat to them for hours on the phone.
Image credits: zenova360
#8
I downloaded a free trial of WinRAR. I found that if the trial runs out, you can still use the software. I’ve been using WinRAR for free for years! Life has never been better.
Image credits: 2Sp00kyAndN0ped
#9
Back in a computer class during grade school we had to use this test program for the class. We would learn how to use word, excel, etc then take the test. Well I figured out that during the test if you hit CTRL-A, it would highlight everything on the page, except for the correct multiple choice answer. Got an easy A in the class.
Image credits: Burntmaybe
#10
Calling the FCC on Comcast because Comcast is a bag of d***s. Every time my bill gets lower, and I’ve even been flagged as a problem customer, but I keep calling with legitimate complaints (internet speed slower than I pay for; unnecessary fees attached to my bill; paying for an extra box when I only have 1).
My bill went down from $150/month to $60/month. Blazing fast internet and all of the premium channels. My goal is to have them paying me for their service by 2017 if given the chance.
Image credits: anon
#11
The soda machine near the locker room. For some reason, every now and then, when you bought a Hawaiian Punch, the flood gates would open and all of the remaining HP’s would flood out.
Whenever I had some change I’d give it a shot. We had different theories about what made it work, but I think it was just random.
Image credits: LaserBeamsCattleProd
#12
During the last year of University a couple of my friends and I discovered that one of the buildings often did like a fancy buffet table if it was hosting a lecture for visitors. It actually was quite a common occurrence and we realised that the people looking after the food didn’t care if you were part of the visitors or not so we would just go along and take a bunch of free food.
Great for poor and starving students!
Image credits: PixelPoppah
#13
I carry round an unopened parking ticket and stick it on the windscreen if I have to leave the car in a place it shouldn’t be.
Image credits: MaxxPowerss
#14
My last job I worked at for 5 years gave me discounts to a ton of things.
I stopped working there, but I never returned my employee card. I still a**se the hell out of it for free parking, free museums, free movie tickets, free subway rides, etc.
Image credits: Isunova
#15
Not me- back in around 2004 a friend of mine found out his bank couldn’t charge him fees while in his student overdraft, he also discovered the train company he uses took money sometimes 7 working days after the purchase. He’d buy a train ticket on the day with no money in his account, he’d get the train 3-7 days later the company would try and take the money, it wasn’t there and the bank couldn’t charge him fees. They sent letter after letter and he just kept doing it for years, never picking up his phone to the bank.
One day he goes into branch and the manager summoned him into the back office, explained that he had been manipulating a loop hole and the bank were having to pay for everyone of his train tickets. He shrugged and said I have no money to pay into the account that account will always be empty, just close it. Manager said they couldn’t close it w/out his permission. He asked how much his permission was worth.
£250 quid it was worth and a promise to please use another bank.
Have asked banking friends about this and that loophole is now well and truly closed sadly.
Image credits: anon
#16
Before they changed the machine, if you played Hungry Hungry Hippos alone at Chuckie Cheese you got all of the tickets that would normally go between 4 players, because obviously your hippo gets the most food. It really appealed to my “I don’t have any friends” side.
Image credits: anon
#17
Years ago, Blockbuster had buy two get one free sale for used dvds. So I would pick two whatever movies and one that I absolutely wanted. A few days later, I would come in, return the two movies, then pick the new ones. I repeated this process for a whole summer.
Image credits: KidnappedByHillFolk
#18
As a college student with meager financial assets, I wanted to be able to read the newspaper. I’m a news j****e and this was before the internet was as good for news as it is today. I learned that if you simultaneously pulled the door and pushed the coin return on the newspaper machine, it would return your coins and still allow the door to open.
Read the news and scored a lot of coupons that way.
Image credits: Fluffing_Satan
#19
I was once the only person to show up to a Microsoft CRM event, since I was the only person to attend I automatically won the door prize of a Xbox 360 with a Kinect.
The downside of this loophole was 3 long hours of talking with MS product evangelists who were very disheartened and desperate to make a sale.
Image credits: tonyjack123
#20
ISPs and cable companies love to sign you up by offering new subscriber deals. problem is the rate ends after a time and you are paying a higher rate. and you are usually under contract so it costs you to get out of it…unless you move out of their service area.
So in college between years my roommates and i would systematically cancel our contracts saying we were moving, then another roommate called and started service under his name. we got the discount rates for 4 straight yearsw.
Image credits: apleima2
#21
It was in Navy boot camp, and if you’ve ever been through boot camp you know that speaking during meals is forbidden. Not even a whisper.
Then service week arrived and the chain of command ordered me to work the mess hall. The job was to pass out cups at the beverage section in order to move the line as fast as possible.
Being on service week, I was permitted to talk. Used that loophole to smile and give each recruit their cup by name. “Here you go, Miller.” Read the names off their uniforms. It was the only time all day that somebody treated them like a human being.
The smiles of gratitude were priceless.
Image credits: doublestitch
#22
I was a bike messenger in the early 90’s and learned 2 calling tricks. The first one was a red boxing it’s a noise simulator that you could buy at radio shack that could replicate the noise you hear in your ear for each coin you drop in a payphone. You would hold this little gadget to the mouthpiece and every time you pushed it the coin noise would be accepted as credit toward your call.
The second is that ATM machines used to have phones on them to contact a bank rep with problems. If you lifted the receiver and tapped the hookswitch to mimic a rotary phone (think of morse code) 2 = tap tap space.. you get it. You could make free calls all day, even internationally, a roommate of mine abused this at the same machine every night talking to his girlfriend overseas. He didn’t have the smarts to acknowledge the 3 cameras recording him and was arrested.
Image credits: Fagenstein
#23
When gambling websites offer a free £10 bet when you spend £10, bet both ways. I usually use tennis matches since there’s no draw.
It works best in a fairly one sided match, because if the free bet wins, you only earn the amount gained (not the free bet’s value), so you need odds of 2:1 or greater for a “no lose” situation.
Image credits: LordFrempt
#24
My credit card through my bank gives me reward points. My card is linked to my checking account. You used to get points every time you used your checking account to pay a bill, as well as points for spending on the card. They originally didn’t put a limit on how many times you could pay a bill in a month and still get points. So I was literally paying my credit card bill after every single purchase. Coffee in the morning? Pay bill online. Lunch. Pay bill. Gasoline. Pay bill. Etc. I was getting more points from paying my bill over a hundred times a month than I was from using the card. They changed this after about 2 years.
Image credits: yupyepyupyep
#25
I had a coin operated washing machine and dryer in my college apartment. 4 quarters to wash, 8 quarters to dry. We figured out that if you opened the dryer with 1 minute left on the clock and inserted 1 additional quarter the timer would reset to max dry time. Laundry went from $3 to $1.25. Unfortunately the landlords daughter lived in the same complex and ratted us out and they replaced the dryer with a s***tier one.
Image credits: danbert88
#26
If you do a 3 month trial of Apple Music and your car automatically starts playing music when you turn it on you can go way past the trial, but you can no longer pick your songs so hopefully you had it on a good shuffle.
Image credits: plax1780
#27
My wife had foot surgery this summer. Daughter had a short hospital stay earlier this year. We’ve met our family insurance deductable so now that everything is covered at 100% everyone is stocking up on medical supplies, procedures, chiropractic visits, and anything else we normally can’t afford.
Image credits: Runner40
#28
The free water and $.50 iced coffee refills at Starbucks. You used to be able to get an iced coffee and get it refilled for $.50 at any Starbucks as long as you had your cup. My buddy and I would play basketball at the park, walk to the Starbucks next door and ask for venti iced waters. We would drink them to cool down on the one block drive to the next Starbucks where we would write the code for unsweetened iced coffee on our now empty venti water cups. We would walk in and pay 50 cent for for a would be $3 venti iced coffee. We did this for a good 8 months before they changed the rules to you can only get the 50 cent refill during the same visit and writing “IW” or “h20” in the drink code box on the water cup. I’m a lot older now and pay full price for my iced coffee.
Image credits: Tighten_Up
#29
Gamestop would let you return any used game for the price you paid, if you returned it within 1 week. And you could return it to any store. Free 1 week rentals.
Image credits: madness817
#30
I had the code to a touchless car wash nearby.. needless to say my car was very clean and would sometimes wash it multiple times in one go just in case.
Image credits: dishmcds_plat
#31
Back in the day (2007/2008) I found a major flaw in the POS at Blockbuster
Their system would update overnight, but only certain parts, and these parts were on different days of the week. Their new item prices would update on Thursday, their used prices would update on Friday- BUT their trade-in values would update after closing on Sunday.
This meant if a game dropped in MSRP, it’s new version would first lower on Thursday morning ($49.99 to $19.99) and be cheaper than the used version. The next day, on Friday morning, it’s used version would be lowered ($47.99 to $17.99).
The trade-in value would still be the same- usually $30-$35, even though you could pull the game off the rack, buy it for $20, then trade in back without leaving the line.
I did this a few times and felt bad so I emailed corporate to let them know about the loophole. They told me they didn’t take in information/suggestions from outside parties, essentially because they had that set up as part of their “business strategy.”
I then proceeded to assist them in their endeavors by buying 25+ copies of Beowulf from Best Buy for $9.99 ($19.99-$10 coupon) and trading them in for ~$800 in store credit.
Then I repurchased all 25 copies with the store credit for ~$500.
Then I traded them in again.
Then I bought them again.
I did this a few times over the weekend and ended up with $1200 in store credit from $250 cash.
Then I found a few games GameStop gave good money for and traded them in over there for store credit. I made some preorder and eventually canceled them and requested cash back for the deposit.
I eventually got a letter from Blockbuster banning me from trading, but it had the wrong date (post dated for the next year) and I kept trading.
I don’t feel bad about it.
#32
Lawyer here – Adobe has a loophole where, if someone uses their redaction program, you can open the pdf on an older computer that is slower, zoom in and out real fast and the redaction disappear.
I had a case where the defendant was a con man but good at what he did…so our securities violation case was really a toss-up – had to do with joint venture interest… anyway
Guy has to produce text messages – and some of which had redaction – I did my trick, found out the guy was dealing d***s as well – turned the f****r over for d**g trafficking (because he was selling Rx pills across state lines) and well, we lost the civil case, but f****d him over anyway.
#33
My first semester at college I lived in a three story dorm, with roughly 50 rooms per floor. About halfway through the semester the local dominoes decided to offer a promotion where if you signed up for a new account with a unique address you got your first pizza for free.
My roommate and I exploited the hell out of this promotion by registering for a new dominoes account twice a day using a new mailinator email address and a new room number. By the end of the promotion a couple of months later we had registered rooms up to the 14th floor of the 3 floor dorm we lived in, were absolutely sick of pizza, and were about 15 lbs heavier.
All in, we spent about ~$360 to tip the driver ($3/delivery) for somewhere between 100 and 120 free pizzas over a 2 month period.
#34
At my city’s library they have this summer reading program. In addition to reading books, you can earn points for doing stuff on the library’s website, like writing reviews for DVDs and correcting errors in the book-pages-to-text database.
I found that you can get 100 points (a relatively large amount) for creating a public list online of your favorite movies. You could do this multiple times, but it took about 30 seconds to wait for the page to refresh. I found that I could just spam the “Create List” button without waiting for the page to reload, and every click got me 100 points.
I showed my brother how to do it, and we were on top of the leaderboard overnight. I started cashing in my points for free library drawstring bags and the like, but soon they caught on to me. My brother and I got permanently banned from the reading program, but it was fun while it lasted.
#35
In the early 2000s, I’d go to the movies with a group of friends and buy two tickets. One of us would go out with both ticket stubs and bring a friend who was waiting outside. Then someone else would go out with both stubs again and bring another friend. We did this until all of us got in. Not sure if this can still work now.
I’ve never tried this but my friend claims he’s done it a few times. Get a gray wig and buy the senior citizen reduced rate ticket. The people who check the tickets are getting paid minimum wage and don’t give a f**k if your face doesn’t have enough wrinkles to be 65.
#36
EMT here. In our charting system, there is an entire menu of choices for a patient’s prescription medicines. I was always taught how to fill out this menu item by item (which, for older folks, can be incredibly tedious). One day, scrolling through the huge list of meds looking for one or another, I found the option: “List Given To ED Staff”. One click, and I don’t have to spend 10 minutes typing in medications. Sounds like a small thing, but boy does it make a difference.
#37
Our favorite German restaurant/bar offers a *Schnapps Nummer* free birthday drink to anyone celebrating a birthday with 2 equal numbers in the age (i.e. 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, etc.)
A group of college friends would go and take turns pretending to be 22 to get a free drink. Amazing how one of us was *always* turning 22!
#38
Gatorade had an under-the-cap contest one summer (like 20 years ago). And they were still being sold in glass bottles. Well, the glass bottles of lemon ice – you could just flip the bottle over and read the cap without opening it. I must have looked at 500 bottles that Summer and won a bunch of c**p. A CD wallet and a pack of basketball cards were about the best things I won.
#39
When I lived in my first apartment in college we only had 2 parking spaces but 3 of us had cars. I got my car 4 months after we signed the lease so I was the one with no parking pass. My complex was notorious for towing people without passes immediately. I had a geo prism (it’s an incredibly small car) and I eventually realized somehow that if I parked next to the dumpster the tow truck wouldn’t be able to tow me because it couldn’t fit back there, so that’s where I parked everyday for the rest of my lease and never had to pay for parking.
#40
I go to a lot of baseball games, but sometimes the lines are insane, especially for a giveaway.
I found out that if you enter the stadium from the gift shop the line is probably never more than 50 people deep, and you still get whatever the giveaway is.
I mean, some people line up for those giveaways HOURS before gates open.
#41
When I was a kid a KFC by my house used to give out free cups of water without a purchase. They also kept packets of lemon juice and sugar on the condiment counter, so my friends and I would go there several times a day during the summer and make lemonade.
#42
Last year, McDonald’s launched its app and when you registered your email you got a free burger. The great thing was that the app wasn’t verifying the emails so I entered a fake email 3 times a day every day for about 3-4 months and got free Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Each sandwich was about $7-$8 because I would add bacon, avacado or an extra patty on mostly ever burger or sandwich. I estimate about $700 – $1000 worth of food.
And I even told atleast 4 other friends that did it with me.
Now I’m just a fat piece of s**t.
#43
When I was a kid (13 if I recall correctly), I figured out the number AOL used to dial out when you *sign up* for the service, and I managed to get online with my PC and Dreamcast that way. I can’t remember exactly how I did it, but I do remember AOL attempting to sue me, and my mom getting pretty upset, but they apparently dropped it when they found out I was so young.
#44
Alladvantage
It was a website that paid you to put an ad bar on your IE browser and paid you like 10 cents an hour.
This was in 2000 I think
I found a hack that let me run 100 ad bars in the background at a time. I ran it on my dial up connection overnight for a couple months and they sent me about 5,000 USD. not bad for a 11th grade kid. My parents thought I was selling d***s.
The company quickly went out of business.
#45
Snack machines at my old work. They were a “guaranteed delivery” type and I found out if a snack comes out and gets stuck it would dispense another one since it thinks that it didn’t dispense anything (something is “dispensed” once it comes out of the corkscrewy thing and triggers the sensor at the bottom of the machine). I always exploited it and some of my colleagues who would come along picked it up and started to do it too. We were never caught.
My friend didn’t really exploit the hell out of it since it’s hard to do so but he found out that sirius xm radios had a year to receive the deactivation signal after the subscription expires. If the radio isn’t getting power, it wouldn’t receive the signal. If you disconnect the power before the expiration, let it sit without power for long enough, you’d get free lifetime siris xm. He exploited this when he inherited his grandma’s crown vic after she passed away. It sat for 2 years without the battery and it was stored just before her subscription ended. In that car my friend has free lifetime sirius xm.
#46
When you fly Southwest business select print your boarding pass and drink coupons at home. Check in at the counter and have them printed again. If you have a connecting flight you will now arrive at your destination pleasantly toasted. I’ve gotten away with it on a single flight by ordering doubles as well.
#47
Back before all info was stored on computers I discovered that military leave requests were approved and signed by the local chain of command as paper carbon copies. One copy was placed in the soldier’s file, one given to the soldier as his leave pass, and the last copy sent to Ft. Ben Harrison to be officially recorded and subtracted from a soldier’s accrued leave. So, taking leave without it counting against the leave accrued was simply a matter of making friends with the company clerk and making sure that last copy ended up in the round file rather that mailed to Ft. Ben. I traveled all over Europe on and off for about four months that year until my ridiculous time away was noticed by my Sgt and compared the local records to the official one. I was only docked about 1/3 of the leave I’d taken and they chalked it up to a “mistake.” If I’d have had the good sense not to go over the top the entire thing would have gone unnoticed. Good times….
#48
Very late into the lifetime of NBA 2K13, the greatest glitch ever was discovered. Someone found out that you could get as much Virtual Currency as you wanted through faked microtransactions. Basically, as long as you **didn’t** have money on the PayPal you were trying to pay with, and logged out immediately, you’d log back in with $10 dollars worth of virtual currency.
The best thing about it though was that it wasn’t too well known and was discovered **very** late into the game, so the framework for the microtransactions was carried over to 2K14. Not only did the glitch still work (for the two-three weeks), but it was **even better,** since the highest “pack” of VC was now worth $50.
#49
Got this Student Edge card for free at university. Came with all these s****y deals but the best one was for McDonald’s, spend $5 and get a free medium soft drink. You couldn’t use this deal when buying from the cheap menu but no one ever checked. The loophole went further though when they had their Monopoly game one year. The medium soft drinks came with a code so I would get them essentially for free and then get free food off of the codes. Circle of life.
#50
When Reign of Kings (PC game) came out in beta, my brother and I found an exploit where if you rotate the 3rd-person camera when up against someone else’s house or base, the camera wouldn’t treat the walls like solid objects so you could rotate yourself through a wall and interact with the objects inside. If anyone placed a chest against a wall (which 99% of people did), we were able to access them and loot people without even breaking into their house. It went unnoticed for like 3 patches until they finally fixed it. Exploited the f**k out of it and made everyone on the server bankrupt within 2 hours. I feel like an a*s but it was so much fun.
#51
Late to the party so it’s probably going to get buried
My university has a program that buys books back, and they guarantee a minimum of at least $5 for college textbooks.
Well, to be considered a college textbook all it really needed was an ISBN. So, I proceeded to buy books from the local library for about 25 cents a pop, sometimes 50 cents. I’d bring in loads of books, 40-50 at a time and sell them. Then they began to have a 20 per student policy, so I rounded up a bunch of friends and gave them books to sell for me, in return they get to keep $50.
I did this for 3 semesters til they caught on and stopped buying old college textbooks all together, and removed the $5 minimum.
Man that was a lot of beer money.
#52
My high school had just started using computers to keep track of attendance and class registrations. There were some bugs, like you might accidentally be assigned a class and a study hall at the same time. Therefor, if you didn’t how up for the first week, they dropped you from the class and assumed you were somewhere else.
The computer didn’t raise any flags if this wasn’t true. My junior and senior years I did this and just showed up to school late for my second class. I blew my mind that no one seemed to notice. Senior year I took it a step further and did this for the class after lunch. I was in school at 9 and left at noon.
#53
Not me but a highschool teacher. Each teacher had only so much paper they could use so he registered his paper use on some other random teacher all the while printing packets like there was no tomorrow.
#54
In Dominican Republic I used to tutor in a high-school which I also attended. We had a cafeteria in the high-school that was run by said school and was hella expensive.
Well employees were allowed to buy with their employee code and have it deducted from their paychecks at the end of the month.
I quit the 2nd week of the month and got paid my last check that friday. Well being the last few weeks of school I continued to eat at the cafeteria for about 4 weeks ordering food for me and my friends.
Still remember all those empanadas.
#55
In the casino that I work in , smoking cigarettes is perfectly acceptable as long as you’re a customer. But there’s a specialized break area for employees outside in the blistering cold. But as employees they’re not allowed to tell us which restrooms we can use and which ones we cannot. There are also No cameras located in the restrooms. So frequently I will go into the customer restroom and smoke a cigarette in a stall. I don’t know if this is a loophole or not but it sure feels like one.
#56
Im still exploit this so dont repeat it:
when you go to a water dispenser you can take more than one paper cups. use one and keep one for later.
#57
When vending machines first started accepting credit cards you could swipe your card, select a drink and when the little drink pod starts moving to collect your drink hit cancel. The cancel button would stop the card transaction but not the machine so you could get free drinks.
Was a sad day when it stopped working.
#58
Most online news sources want to charge you after something like 10 articles. Easily avoidable if you either adjust your cookies to clear automatically, or browse in safe mode.
#59
I am part of a group that routinely launches weather balloons. There’s a law about how large of an object you’re allowed to fly before having to contact the FAA and obtain permission to do so. However, the law specifies the size of the object using measurements taken “at sea level,” and we typically launch from up in the mountains. Our balloons are almost always larger than what is allowed, *but* they would be within the parameters if we went down to a lower elevation. So we’ve exploited the hell out of that about a million times.
#60
Not me personally. But every holiday season, the Cheesecake Factory has a deal where you can get a free piece of cheesecake if you buy $25 in gift cards. So my dad gets $500 in gift cards for himself. Our family has to eat 20 pieces of cheesecake every year from 1/1 to 3/31 (it honestly becomes a chore).
#61
Working in NYC they are constantly filming SOMETHING somewhere. I always noticed that there was usually a tent with a full spread of food and various people eating from it. Sometimes there was a food truck too. On a particularly hot day I popped my head in and grabbed a cold water. Nobody batted an eye. Ok, that was refreshing. About a month later they were filming for a few days in a row outside of my apartment. I finally got some balls one morning and walked in and grabbed a bagel and coffee. Nothing…….. The next day I did the same. A friendly smile and good morning was all I got from the guy putting scones out and cooking up some eggs. The next day I walked in during the morning and the “chef” was making omelettes. HE ASKED ME if I wanted an omelette. Who was I to turn down such a kind gesture. That was the last day they were filming by my apartment, but whenever I see a film crew I look for the tent and grab a little something.
Also, sorry for your $20 movie ticket.
#62
I used to take this shortcut to work, through a rich neighborhood. Recently they put up a sign that says “No Right Turn Between 7am-10am” to ~~stop poor people from driving through~~ ease up traffic congestion.
However, if I drive past the street a ways, pull over, and then make a U-turn? Now I’m turning *left* onto the road. So it’s not illegal.