25 Tricky People Who Used Loopholes To Pull One Over On Greedy Corporations, Mean Landlords, And Other Jerks

Not too long ago we did a post about people on Quora who brilliantly exploited loopholes to outsmart those in power, and they were oh-so-satisfying to read.

Well, members of the BuzzFeed Community chimed in with their own stories, so here are nine more deliciously clever loopholes people exploited, followed by the original ones from the first post in case you missed them.

NOTE: Some of these are stories about loopholes from years ago, or from different countries, so don't yell at me if they don't work anymore. OK, love ya!

1."I was staying in a big Las Vegas casino hotel when I noticed a slot machine that paid out a collectible coin. Watching people play the machine, I realized it paid off every second time. What most people didn't notice, though, was that at the bottom of the machine, it said in small letters that each coin had a face value of $14.95. So, I started playing the machine, collected an entire bucket of collectible coins, then went to the exchange cage and told the lady I wanted to cash in my coins. She said, 'Oh, no. Most people don't do that. These are collectibles.' I said, 'They're worth $14.95 according to the machine,' so, after discussing it with her manager, she paid me 1,000 bucks!"

"I happily went about my business, and then later that day, when I went to hit up the machine again, it was gone. I guess after all these years, I was the first person to actually read the outside of the machine."

—Anonymous

2."Starbucks used to have a holiday special: Purchase a thermos in December for about $35, and enjoy one free coffee a day in January by presenting the thermos. So, in January, I would go to three different Starbucks a day, seven days a week, and get free coffee (of course, I would always tip). One cup of coffee at $3.00 x three cups = $9.00 a day, $63.00 a week, and $252 for one month. Bwahahahaha!"

3."I had a small food-based business and participated in farmers' markets four days a week for 10 years. When you show up at a market, you need a tent for obvious reasons. I bought a tent from Dick's Sporting Goods and, for an additional $10, got the extended warranty which was good for a year; the warranty also included wear and tear. Every year I would go back to Dick's with my tent from the previous year and show them the 'wear and tear.' They would give me a new tent, and I would purchase an additional extended warranty for another $10. This went on for 10 years! New tents were close to $100, and I managed to spend no more than that for 10 new tents. That was the only time I remember an extended warranty really paying off!"

—marvelouspony48

4."When comedian Dick Gregory campaigned for president in 1968, he passed out 'Dick Gregory for President' lookalike dollar bills. They were the size of US currency and had his image instead of George Washington's. I got a stack of them at one of his appearances at Temple University and found that the campus bill changers would accept them and dispense four quarters! I ate well that semester. Fast-forward to 1982. I was driving taxis in Boston when Mr. Gregory got in my cab at the Copley Plaza Hotel. I told him the story, and he was astonished, laughed, and said he had no idea!"

5."I worked at a 7-Eleven store in the 1980s, and back then, the Sunday newspaper routinely had coupons for $5.00 off a carton of cigarettes. The store was next to a busy interstate exit in a state with the lowest cigarette taxes in the country, so it was common for people to see the low prices for a carton of cigarettes and buy all we had on the shelf. When working on a Sunday, we would go to the newspaper rack outside the store, feed it 50 cents, and pull out all of the cigarette coupons. For the rest of the day, we would hold on to the unwanted receipts for the sale of cartons of cigarettes, staple the coupon to it, and pull the $5 from the register. We easily tripled our hourly rate on those days!"

—Anonymous

6."Panera has a beverage club where you can get unlimited coffee, tea, and fountain drinks for free for the first two months (then $14.99 per month after that). I would sign up and use it for almost two months, then cancel before my card was charged. Then I would get an email saying, 'We miss you,' and if you sign up for two more months, it will cost you nothing or maybe $3–$4, I can't remember. So I'd sign up again and cancel again right before the free trial ended and get the same email again. That worked for a couple of years."

7."Decades ago, during our first quarter at a state university, my best friend and I lived in a dorm room. As part of our contract, we were required to buy four coupon books worth $40 each, with tearaway tickets in various denominations, for our cafeteria meals. It was $160 for food over a three-month quarter...as I said, decades ago. Late in the quarter, we noticed ads on the dorm bulletin boards where students (who were obviously eating out instead of at the cafeteria) were selling unused coupon books for prices as low as $10. The coupon books could be used for the entire school year. That gave me an idea."

"We bought as many books as cheaply as possible, then went home on holiday break. While there, we each went to our family doctor and told them we had stomach issues, which we thought might have been the result of the cafeteria food. The docs wrote letters on our behalf to present to the university, which meant the school had to let us out of our $160 per quarter coupon purchase requirements.

We then ate at the cafeteria for perhaps 25% of what we would have been charged. We did this for the two years we lived in the dorms (school requirement at the time). Granted, it was cafeteria food, but it was cheap, and we were never hungry."

—Anonymous

8."Movie theater popcorn — it has unlimited refills if you buy a large one. There is no restriction on when the refill happens, so I go to the theater, buy popcorn, and don’t even watch a movie. So far, I have refilled it over 12 times for free. It only works if you live near the theater; I am within two miles. And I LOVE movie theater popcorn!!!"

9."ASDA Groceries in the UK used to do a price match promise. You took your receipt home, input the barcode on their website, and if there was a price discrepancy between the other supermarkets they checked against, you'd get a voucher for 2x the amount of difference. It didn't need to be YOUR receipt, of course. Did someone leave a receipt in the carrier bag? Take it home and check it. Receipt lying on the ground? Take it home and check it. I was unemployed at the time, and always took home whatever receipts I found."

"I found one around Christmas with about £10 of a difference, so I ended up with a £20 voucher. The checkout people were supposed to mark your receipt to show it had been used, but if it didn't get marked, you could use it again and again until it was. This was exceedingly helpful during those lean weeks when you had to decide between the choice to 'heat or eat.'

ASDA stopped doing it after a while, though."

—teeldubya

10."When I was 10, my parents signed me and my younger siblings up for the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Kids Birthday Club. I gave Krispy Kreme my address and birth month, and they were supposed to send me a coupon for a free dozen doughnuts every year on my birth month until I aged out of their Kids Club at age 12 — because it was just for kids, right? But Krispy Kreme forgot to ask for the year in my birthday. They had no clue how old I was. So that's how, at 29, I'd been a member of the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Kids Birthday Club for 19 years."

11."My Dad's Lexus was stolen right out from his carport, so he reported it as stolen to the police and insurance company. After two weeks, when the car never turned up, the insurance company paid him for the car. Another week goes by, and he gets a call from the police saying they found his car parked two towns away. There wasn't a single scratch on it, and not a lot of miles had been put on it either. So now the insurance company owns the car, and they put it up for auction. My dad goes to the auction and bids on his car to get it back. He won the bid with $10,000 to spare. So he drove home in his car with an extra $10,000 in his pocket."

—Pam W.H., Quora

12."I'm not sure how widespread this 'trick' was, but a close childhood friend taught it to me. This was back in the day when public pay phones were all over the place. He showed me that if you dialed '10ATT1' on a pay phone, you would get another dial tone and could dial out for free. We placed many 'free' calls back in the day. This method also allowed me to make long-distance calls, and even to call those 976-CHAT numbers (normally $1.99 a minute)."

13."Every year, I purchased McDonald's Trick or Treat books. These books sold for $1 each and had coupons for 12 'free' items, such as ice cream, burgers, apple slices, yogurt, and fries. The idea was to give one of the coupons to each trick-or-treater who showed up at your door. The coupons were good until December of that year. About 10 years ago, I purchased my customary 10 books and noticed that they did not have an expiration date that year! I went back and purchased an additional 50 or 100 books (I forget how many), but the store was sold out of them when I got done."

"We used those books for YEARS! I still have a couple of coupons left, waiting to be used. There was NO AGE RESTRICTION and NO EXPIRATION! The missing expiration date meant that ALL McDonald's had to honor them no matter the month or YEAR. I presented some to one location that had never even SEEN these coupons."

—Christine K., Quora

14."Instead of paying for Netflix, I profited. I accidentally discovered this loophole when I wanted to upgrade my account from Basic (€8 a month) to Standard (€11 a month). A few weeks later, I changed my mind and downgraded to Basic — exactly one day before I was supposed to get charged like every month. Since I had used the Standard account for most of the month, I assumed I would be charged €11. However, I was surprised to find out that they had charged only €8. I thought it might have been a glitch, and I was curious to find out if it would work every time, so I upgraded my account again and then downgraded it one day before I was supposed to pay. Again, they charged only €8."

15."I’m currently attending a large university in the US. My minor has simple requirements: I must pass at least 4 of 10 offered classes. As it turns out, 4 of the 10 classes are taught by the same professor. He teaches two in the fall and two in the spring. By chance, I took him once. I’ve taken him three more times and have earned my minor, getting A’s in every single one of his classes. And I guarantee you I couldn’t pass a basic class with any other professor. This professor gives weekly quizzes and monthly tests in person, but via the computer. We sign into a special software that doesn’t allow us to search the internet, and take the test with him there. Everything was multiple-choice. But here’s where it gets interesting..."

"Many of his questions had more than one answer. So, he set the test so you could check as many answers as you wanted. For example, we could select both A and B because the answer could be both. But the test never counted how many answers we selected. It only made sure you checked the right box, not if you checked a wrong box. So, if the answer was A and B, and I checked A,B, and C, it would count as right.

So what’d I do? I checked A, B, C, D, and E for almost every single question. The software would see that I checked the right answer (because I checked every answer) and mark the question right. Sometimes, to maintain realism, I’d purposefully check only one box for a few questions to get them wrong. My average scores stood between 95%–100% the entire semester. And quizzes and tests made up 75% of his grading, the other 25% being just menial homework. These classes boosted my GPA noticeably, and now I have a particularly impressive minor to put on my résumé."

—Anonymous, Quora

16."I was accepted by Harvard Medical School without all the prerequisites and without taking the MCAT. It was the fall of my junior year at MIT. I was studying/hanging out with a girl I had a crush on (a senior), and she was upset that her MCAT scores were not good enough. I was flipping through the brochure for Harvard Medical School and saw what I thought might be a major loophole. I told her not to give them the MCAT scores, as they were not really an admissions requirement. Of course, she didn’t believe me and challenged me to apply and see if that 'loophole' worked. So I did."

17."In high school, I had a part-time job in a local chain supermarket store. I did the usual: stocking shelves, helping in the butcher shop, cleaning floors, and bagging groceries. The store began running a promotion where, for every $100 in receipts, you could get a free dish in a set of 'fine' china. It was kind of silly; the reality was that most people would never accumulate enough receipts for a place setting, let alone an entire set."

"But in my tenure as a bag boy, I noticed several things: 1.) People often just put the receipt in the trash can on the way out; 2.) They often told the cashier they did not want the receipt, and she put it in the trash can under the register; and 3.) If I was helping people, especially the older ladies, take the groceries to their car and asked them for their receipts, explaining I was trying to get my ma a set of dishes, they usually gave them to me. So I became the most willing volunteer to bag groceries, the most diligent emptier of trash cans, and the most solicitous helper to people who needed assistance getting groceries to their car.

A week before the promotion ended, I presented thousands of dollars in receipts to my ma and explained what she had to do, omitting to the store, of course, that she had a relative employed there. That is how we got the 'fine' china that is still used by my ma to this day — complete with soup tureen and gravy boat — and the highly sought after 'Giant Serving Platter.'"

—James V.D., Quora

18."I'm sure you're familiar with Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks offers membership cards that cost about $5. These cards aren't super useful at first glance. It's putting your money on a card that can ONLY be used to buy coffee, after all. Why do that when you can just use actual money? Well, there's more to it than meets the eye — for us cheapskates. You see, being a member and getting your own card means that you get a free drink once a year for your birthday. And you don't have to show your birth certificate for them to determine your birthday. You simply fill out all that information when you first buy the card. Now, this is technically illegal, but if one HYPOTHETICALLY bought 365 cards and set a different birthdate for each of them — one for each day of the year, of course — then they could get a free coffee. Every day. For the rest of their life."

19."Many years ago in Canada, I lived in an apartment shared with a couple of other students. Canada is cold. As students, we each had a room and a central kitchen. Heating was included in the rent, which was great. We just set the kitchen heat control thermostat to 72ºC (21ºC). This was great in September, even October. Into November and onwards, we enjoyed the comfortable ambient temperature you would expect for a heated apartment. Sometime in late November or early December, the landlord began to complain that his heating costs were too high. He asked if we would mind setting the heat to 60ºF (15ºC) while we were on campus in classes and overnight sleeping and 70ºF (20ºC) when we were there during the evenings. Sure. No problem. Reasonable. We complied."

"In January, the landlord complained again about heating costs being too high. We thought we had been flexible enough. We were doing his reasonable austerity measures, and were paying the same rent as we had in September–November. Heat was supposed to be included in the rent. The landlord asked if we would do 50ºF (10ºC) for days and 60ºF (10ºC) for evenings and overnight. We declined. Not reasonable. We were paying for heat. There was a discussion and some negotiation. Then, that landlord made a strategic blunder. One day, he said he would be doing maintenance while we were in class. When we came home, we discovered he'd put a locked plastic box over the thermostat and set it for 50ºF (10ºC). Colder than cool. It was frigid in both the rooms and the kitchen. Doing that while we were out for class had been a mean and dirty trick.

Not to be outdone, we got a plain old bucket. Canada, as you might expect, has snow from sometime in December until mid–late April. Our standard practice became for the first person going into the house from class and the last person going out for the day to hang a bucket packed with snow on that locked thermostat box. The landlord just couldn't figure out why his costs went up and why we stopped complaining. That bucket of snow kept that heat-controlling thermostat thinking it was FREEZING in the apartment, and it kept the furnace running just fine.

It took a while to get the right amount of snow to get a comfortable temperature. Soon, we were warm and cozy. The landlord had to give us a day's notice for any inspections, and the bucket was always standing in the corner with a mop in it by the time he arrived. He'd always find the apartment a frigid 50ºF (10ºC) during his inspections.

We used that bucket for the rest of the lease. It wasn't a paper loophole but a technical one. And we exploited it to the fullest."

—Ian S., Quora

20."In a discussion with a Luxor Casino host, she mentioned that my fiancé had done 'very well' during her last visit. She hadn't actually done all that well, so we suspected that her record had been crossed with somebody with far more money. We decided to see just how far we could push that."

21."When I lived in Tempe, Arizona, I lived in the back of my apartment complex and got my own little sheltered parking spot for my Toyota. Unfortunately, it was not uncommon for people to park in my designated spot or block it with their cars. Being as polite as I could, I would go around and knock on doors to try and get that person to move their car. Often, I would be late for class. One day, I was looking through the tenants' rights of Maricopa County, Arizona, and I found a clause that stated that the tenant had the right to remove an illegally parked vehicle."

"The clause then defined 'an illegally parked vehicle' to mean a car that is parked in such a way that it hinders the tenant from entering or exiting their designated parking space. The clause also said that the owner of the illegally parked vehicle is responsible for fixing any damage caused by the removal of the vehicle. The clause never stated HOW the tenant might do that, however. The county legislators probably thought that 99.99% of people would call a towing company, but I had places to be and was honestly fed up with these illegal parkers, so I was part of that other 0.01% group.

I bought towing straps on my way home from class one day, and I didn't even have to wait a full night. Parked in my space — a space I was paying rent for — was a black Tesla. I hooked it up to my Toyota diesel pickup and dragged it out of there, tires squealing. I left it in the middle of the street, and the next morning, the owner came out and stood perplexed at the new positioning of his car.A few days later, there was a Prius parked in front of my truck. I had to get to class but couldn't. So, I gently pushed the Prius out of the way with my bull-bar and left it in the middle of the street. The Prius sustained a minor dent in its passenger side, and that evening when I got back from college, there were several police officers on the scene. The owner of the Prius tried to charge me with a hit and run, but after I showed the officers the picture that I took of the Prius blocking my truck in, the clause from the tenant's rights document, and the lease proving that I was the rightful occupant of the parking spot, they determined that the Prius owner was at fault and responsible for the damages.

Several more times this happened, and eventually, word got around that my parking spot was not safe to park in front of. Everyone could tell if there was a newbie in town because they would park in front of my spot and subsequently get yanked. Thanks, Maricopa County!"

—Dave S., Quora

22."Pizza Hut used to have a guarantee at lunch that you would have your personal pan pizza in five minutes, or your next one was free. The 'scam' was that if they didn't have the pizzas made and waiting to be served, they wouldn't take your order (which started the clock). So I walked in and placed my order 'to go' at the register. Since I wasn't sitting at a table, they couldn't delay taking my order. I also knew the manager worked weekends and took Tuesdays off, making Tuesdays rather chaotic. So, on Tuesdays, I would order my two pizzas and get two coupons for a free one next time, which would give me two more. Of course, there were times when they would make the five minutes, and I'd have to pay the next time. My record: I bought two pizzas, got 14 free."

23."In a month and a half, I would have had 20 years with my company and become fully vested in the retirement system. But then I received notification that I was being terminated in four weeks. They gave a couple of reasons for it, but I knew the real reason. The new president of the company used to be the general manager of an operating unit for which I'd been called in to fix a production issue (I worked for corporate as a 'firefighter'). I fixed the issue in three days and gave him a full report. He offered me a job. Now, remember, I was part of the corporate staff, but he was offering me a position in an operating unit. It was kind of a step down, and only a 4% raise was involved. I respectfully declined the offer — and my corporate boss was so happy that I was staying that I got a 22% raise!"

"Well, the general manager was named president, and he went through his list of people who had crossed him. I was way down on his list, but I was still on the list. So was my boss. But my boss was old enough to retire comfortably. I was 45 and nowhere near retirement age, and now it seemed like I was going to be screwed out of my pension.

A friend who happened to have some HR experience heard I was being let go and gave me some pointers. I called the head of HR and asked if my position was being eliminated or if I was being terminated. I was told that the position was being eliminated. That was very important information because, according to the law of my state, a person being terminated must be given two to four weeks' notice. However, if the position is being eliminated, then the person must be given no less than eight weeks' notice. Hmmmm.

Apparently, HR realized what I was asking, did some research, and called me back, saying that they were giving me those eight weeks, which meant I would reach 20 years and collect my full pension.

Fortunately, I was in good standing with HR. After all, we worked in the same office for many years. I was also given a year's severance pay. Cool, I could now coast for a year."

—Tom C., Quora

24."Back in my college days, there was a place in town where someone put a needle in your arm, removed the blood from your body, harvested the plasma, and then returned the blood to your body. It was easy money — $20 for your first visit in a week and $30 for your second visit. It was good money for what it was back then. I had been doing this for about a year when the plasma place sent out a mass mailing to all the dorm buildings on campus. The mailing contained a coupon for a new donor special that entitled you to an extra $5 if you brought the mailer along. As I watched nearly everyone dispose of the mailer in the recycling bin, I struck upon an idea. I dumpster-dived the recycling bin, retrieving every single discarded mailer."

25."United used to overbook flights from Portland to San Francisco all the time, so anytime I needed to fly to San Francisco, I would ALWAYS book the earliest flight out the day before and then volunteer to take the bump over and over again. I would then take the last flight out with my coworkers who booked that flight in the first place. I picked up two or three vouchers a day, and if they didn't have a bump, which was rare, I just got to SF early and crashed in the hotel. Later in the year, I used the vouchers to fly the whole family to Hawaii."

—William E., Quora

(Entries have been edited for length and/or clarity.)

Did you ever exploit a loophole like these folks? If so, let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form. Your response could be featured in a future BuzzFeed Community post!