USA Today has a story about a New Jersey couple who allegedly used a glitch in Lowes website to steal merchandise.
A New Jersey couple used a website glitch to try and get more than $258,000 worth of goods — everything from a gazebo to an air conditioner to a stainless steel grill — for free from a home improvement store, authorities said.
Ultimately, the couple was only able to secure nearly $13,000 worth of merchandise from Lowe's after exploiting "weaknesses" in the company's website to have the items shipped to their home in Brick for free, according to a release from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
Romela Velazquez, 24, was arrested and charged with theft by deception and computer criminal activity for accessing a computer system with the purpose to defraud. She attempted to get about $258,068 worth of unpaid merchandise from Lowe's, according to the release.
She actually received about $12,971 in stolen products, according to the release.
Her husband, Kimy Velazquez, 40, was charged with third-degree receipt of stolen property and fencing for his role in the alleged scheme.
The couple tried to sell some of the products on a local Facebook "buy and sell" group for half of the original sale price, listing the products as "new in box," authorities said.
According to an article on NJ.com, an attorney for the couple has stated that Velazquez is just an expert shopper, not a criminal hacker.
Jef Henninger, an attorney for Romela Velazquez, said his client is "the farthest thing from a computer hacker."
"Like many young mothers, she needs to stretch every dollar she can," Henninger said in a statement. "As a result, she has learned to spot good deals. These are the same deals that any of us can take advantage of, but most of us are too busy to learn how to spot them.
"Buying things at a big discount and selling them is not illegal. As a result, she maintains her innocence (and) looks forward to her day in court."
As far as I have been able to find, no technical details about the hack have been released.
One of the more interesting details that I did see was
Lowe's, makers of Ugg shoes and Victoria's Secret have been identified as victims so far – but many more retailers were also ripped off and will eventually be identified, officials said.
Who knew?
Additional coverage at the New York Post and BleepingComputer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:00AM (33 children)
on a BBS I was given a phone number. Using my 300 baud modem to connect to that phone number I connected to Monkey Ward. From there I could order anything they offered in their catalog. No money required, just a mailto address.
I thought about it, then decided no, I don't want to go to prison 10 years later when they figured it out.
This is the same shit. Get a 20% discount? Yeah, that's plausible. Get a 100% discount? Yeah, you're a thief and fuck you.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 1, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:04AM (11 children)
Yeah, but I'm guessing you couldn't hide behind female privilege.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:07AM (10 children)
Fail to see male/female privilege here. You're either a thief or not a thief, gender doesn't come into the equation.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:53AM
Maybe GP was talking about a <pun>thyvette</pun>?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:25PM (1 child)
Let me try to make this obvious.
What's the difference between a SWAT team at 4 AM and being thrown straight into PMITA prison where one will be subjected to rape (we are ok when men are raped; we lose our shit when women are raped) along with press coverage that's already convicted one of not only a felony violation of the CFAA, but of being a “hacker” and worse than that, somebody who hasn't had enough sex with women…
What's the difference between that and being a “young mother” who's “learned to spot good deals.” Yeah, I'm sure whatever way she's abusing the website merely constitutes a “good deal.”
The difference, folks, is gender!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:25PM
The difference is a lawyer is grasping at any straw possible to get their client off the hook - or have you never seen the ridiculous defense arguments made in.. frankly just about every case where the perpetrator is caught red-handed?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:16PM (4 children)
In crime, it pays to be a (white) woman because you are A) less likely to be charged, and B) less likely to be convicted, and C) if you are convicted, serve a much shorter sentence:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:52PM (2 children)
Well that's not really a problem since more guys are committing the crimes than women. At least the major crimes.
Despite throwing fewer women into prison, there still aren't that many women serial killers/rapists/robbers/investment bankers/etc.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/genderinc.html [prisonpolicy.org]
(Score: 2) by chromas on Tuesday August 22 2017, @10:13PM
Dat's raci—oh wait, you said "guys", not "black guys". It's okay then. Carry on.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:46AM
And really, a "rate" for incarceration should be "incarcerations per guilty defendant", not "... per head of population". If women commit only 1% of the crime (with the same distribution of crime types as males) then were they 5% of the incarcerations, males being 95%, that 5% statistic would imply there was a gross bias against females.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by chromas on Tuesday August 22 2017, @10:41PM
I'm pretty shocked huffpo would run such an article.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:53AM (1 child)
k.t. says effectively "there should be no gender disparity, but she's probably going to get special treatment because she's female" and gets -1 troll?
You say effectively "there should be no gender disparity" and you get modded +1 insightful?
OK, k.t. gets a couple of insightfuls when spelling out the deadly headshot long-hand, but everything necessary to get the point was in the original post.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:58AM
The history's more complex... Troll (->0), Insightful (->1), Troll (->0), Offtopic (->-1), Underrated (->0), Touché (->1)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:27AM (4 children)
If you cheat the system to get a 20% discount, it's just as much stealing as getting a 100% discount using the same bug.
Having said that, I am much more concerned about the other side of the coin in this situation - it seems to imply that the vendor/business is not responsible for ensuring that their website is properly operating. Okay, sure this one sounds like a pretty obvious case of cheating on the side of the customer... but what about when the wrong price is advertised and the vendor doesn't want to fulfill the advertised price? It seems like a get out of jail free card. Also seems to imply that as a business, I can use any quality IT vendor for my needs as I am not on the hook for any screw-ups their code allows customers to do...
It's a damned race to the bottom if you ask me...
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:08AM (2 children)
Not any more than a homeowner is responsible, when locking up his house on the way to work, to ensure that his locks are free of zero-day or any other vulnerability as known by at least one person on this Earth this very minute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:33AM
Nope, if there's no sign of forced entry then insurance won't pay out when you're robbed. Something like 90% of household locks are trivially picked without leaving signs, but few people with brains are robbing houses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:33AM
Really? So filthy rich corporations running their own websites are equivalent to the average homeowner? Don't you think people/corporations with that many resources should be held to a higher standard than that?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:01AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:02AM (5 children)
Why? If the store offers you a 75% discount, you would take it, wouldn't you?....
If they offer you a free item, 100% off, you would take it, wouldn't you?
Isn't it their fault for offering to "sell" you something at 100% off list price?
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:50PM (1 child)
On the contrary, Microsoft was literally offering Windows 10 for 100% off until last year, but I refused to take it. And thank goodness I didn't.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:39PM
No they weren't. If they were, I would have stockpiled a few copies against possible future need.
What they were offering was a free but irreversible (beyond the trial period) "upgrade" from older (but not *too* old) versions of windows. Basically a trade-in program from Win 7 and 8, where the price was your old version of Windows.
As such I "traded in" a Windows 8 license, with no regrets - nowhere to go but up from there. Would have done the same with XP if I could have (no use for an OS I can't safely connect to the internet) But I kept Windows 7.
Of course my main PC is still running Linux, because why would I want to do my day-to-day stuff on an OS with factory-integrated spyware?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:06PM
0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea [wikipedia.org]
1) If the page immediately showed you a big discount and a reasonable person would have thought it was a discount, then I'd say you were innocent. >=100% discount is not reasonable, normally stores will say "Free!" instead of 100% discount. People make mistakes. But on the flip side, people make mistakes and think 100% is reasonable too. So I might give the benefit of doubt to the "buyer" ;).
2) BUT if you had to do unusual steps before you got that discount then it starts to depend on those steps, e.g. was it some sort of online "treasure hunt" planned by the store? An online treasure hunt gone wrong with a buggy discount thing?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:03AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:40PM
Ah, but they ALSO marked up air freshener by 250%!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stormreaver on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:18AM (9 children)
I couldn't disagree more. The couple in the story is a victim of a vicious double standard. Lowe's agreed to give stuff away, and then had a change of heart after the fact. Because Lowe's is rich, it was able to have the police declare the transaction invalid. If it were you or me, the police would say, "Sorry, but you agreed to the transaction. Be more careful next time." And that would be the end of the story. That Lowe's agreed to the transaction algorithmically is entirely irrelevant. A binding contract was created (offer and acceptance).
That Lowe's made a bad deal should not invalidate the deal.
(Score: 2) by arcz on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:22AM (1 child)
If that's really the case, the criminal complaint will be dismissed and the property returned to the couple.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday August 22 2017, @11:37AM
Minus the fact that these two folks probably can't afford a great lawyer, compared with Lowes and their legal team. Court isn't likely to be a level playing field, although I am glad to read that they at least do have a lawyer.
(Score: 1) by Virindi on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:36AM (3 children)
Agreeing to give something away for free is not a "binding contract". See: "consideration".
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Tuesday August 22 2017, @11:53AM (1 child)
"Consideration" can be waived, if both parties agree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:01PM
No, you cannot "waive" consideration. If any of the 3 elements of a contract (offer, consideration, and acceptance) are missing then it is not a contract.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:12AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday August 22 2017, @02:12PM
Since they haven't reveled the technical details of how they did this, so it's hard to say, but if in fact this was just a dumb mistake as to how they handle their pricing, and not an actual "hack" I'd say it should fall under the same laws as when merchandise is incorrectly priced in a store...that is where Lowes would be obligated to honor it. Again, though, it's unclear what exactly happened.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:54PM (1 child)
If only she used the opportunity to get some goods she was in need of, probably she could get away with it.
But to profit from it by trying to get all she could? It's obvious it would be noticed.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:24PM
Who cares is she profited from it? It's how businesses are started, maintained, and grown. She found a great source, and sold at a profit. It's not her fault if the source didn't calculate its own profits accurately.