salty tbone Posted May 22, 2009 Another thief gives adults buying lots o' Lego a bad name. "LAUDERDALE LAKES - The Broward Sheriff's Office announced Thursday the arrest of a "serial toy thief" who they say admitted stealing toys more than 300 times from South Florida stores. Max Rodriguez, 34, faces a single count of grand theft, but authorities say more charges are likely after they found at least $7,000 worth of toys in his south Miami-Dade home. Rodriguez currently is out of custody after bonding out of the Broward County Jail. Rodriguez's toy-pilfering days ended Monday after a suspicious loss prevention employee at the Wal-Mart in Lauderdale Lakes noticed he was walking around with six boxes of the same $62 Lego toy, according to a Sheriff's Office press release. After Rodriguez paid for the toys, the employee checked with the cashier and found that the entire tab was only $44.46. That's when the loss prevention employee stopped Rodriguez and the Broward Sheriff's Office was called. Authorities said Rodriguez admitted altering bar codes on the toy boxes so they rang up reduced amounts." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/bre...0,4156605.story From the video, they were obviously Star Wars sets. I'm sure I've been tracked numerous times by loss prevention because I regularly buy a bunch of Lego during clearance times. But unlike this muttonhead, I'm not stealing from them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted May 22, 2009 How could he "alter" a computerized bar code? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
salty tbone Posted May 22, 2009 How could he "alter" a computerized bar code? Well, in the infamous 2005 case, the person put a fraudulent UPC sticker over the legit one. http://www.co.washington.or.us/sheriff/media/fite100k.htm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sandy Posted May 22, 2009 Damn, that sounds easy! I've got to try that out sometimes... Okay, I'm just kidding! I'm not so poor that I would have to resort to illegal means to fulfill my LEGO urges. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted May 22, 2009 Oh - sounds like they switched them somehow and not necessarily altered them. Man - and I feel guilty after buying a set, then saving the receipt in case the price goes down somewhere else... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darth Legolas Posted May 22, 2009 62 bucks for the V-19 torrent! I'd call that robbery! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stash2Sixx Posted May 22, 2009 As a former Loss Prevention officer for a major retailer, I'm not gonna tell you how he did it, but yes, it can be done. It's guys like these that also help drive up the prices in the end for all of us good customers! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Spyder Posted May 22, 2009 It really is sad. He's giving us Lego purchasers a bad name in a way. Now Loss Prevention agents have to watch the Lego buyers more carefully. I do wonder though, what they did with all those Lego sets he hadn't sold. Did the police bring them back to the store so they could sell them at regular price? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brickzone Posted May 22, 2009 It would suggest that the checkout employees weren't capable of "sanity checking" the prices until the last occasion. I mean I know it's not that skilled a position - but especially after any length of time working there you should have a vague idea of prices and query any oddities (presumably the item appeared on the till as a different Lego product too). Anyway, it sounds like far too much reliance on barcodes by the retailer. Why even have the cashier?! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuvieD Posted May 22, 2009 You can't blame the register attendant either though. I recently picked up seven clearance sets that were 80% off and the stickers on them were still sitting at 50% off. I only paid $56 for $280 worth of LEGO. Deals are to be found out there and the checkout is rarely the place to catch pricing discrepencies. Though ideally any item of that size should send warning signals at least when there are no clearance stickers and the items are in bulk. The toy department and loss prevention were smart in working together as it is their job to figure this stuff out. Still, people like this are awful. Gives all the real collectors and bargain hunters a bad name. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xenologer Posted May 23, 2009 As a former Loss Prevention officer for a major retailer, I'm not gonna tell you how he did it, but yes, it can be done. It's guys like these that also help drive up the prices in the end for all of us good customers! Lemme guess a few possibilites: He probably doesnt actually cut the UPC off and swap em, cause that would look really obvious, right? So maybe... A sticker UPC that he puts over the real one. or A black marker, where he blacks out a few of the bar code stripes so it reads as a different item when scanned. -this would take quite a bit of study to get right, but I suspect this may very well be what it was... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
just2good Posted May 23, 2009 Another thief gives adults buying lots o' Lego a bad name."LAUDERDALE LAKES - The Broward Sheriff's Office announced Thursday the arrest of a "serial toy thief" who they say admitted stealing toys more than 300 times from South Florida stores. Max Rodriguez, 34, faces a single count of grand theft, but authorities say more charges are likely after they found at least $7,000 worth of toys in his south Miami-Dade home. Rodriguez currently is out of custody after bonding out of the Broward County Jail. Rodriguez's toy-pilfering days ended Monday after a suspicious loss prevention employee at the Wal-Mart in Lauderdale Lakes noticed he was walking around with six boxes of the same $62 Lego toy, according to a Sheriff's Office press release. After Rodriguez paid for the toys, the employee checked with the cashier and found that the entire tab was only $44.46. That's when the loss prevention employee stopped Rodriguez and the Broward Sheriff's Office was called. Authorities said Rodriguez admitted altering bar codes on the toy boxes so they rang up reduced amounts." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/bre...0,4156605.story From the video, they were obviously Star Wars sets. I'm sure I've been tracked numerous times by loss prevention because I regularly buy a bunch of Lego during clearance times. But unlike this muttonhead, I'm not stealing from them. I live in Broward Florida. That thief is pretty dumb if he thinks he gets to steal things and get away with it by changing the barcode. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Athos Posted May 23, 2009 I wonder if its anyone we know... Steve Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
timtosino Posted May 25, 2009 Lemme guess a few possibilites: He probably doesnt actually cut the UPC off and swap em, cause that would look really obvious, right? So maybe... A sticker UPC that he puts over the real one. or A black marker, where he blacks out a few of the bar code stripes so it reads as a different item when scanned. -this would take quite a bit of study to get right, but I suspect this may very well be what it was... It isn't possible to use a Sharpie and black stripes out on a UPC, UPC codes are only 12 numbers and if the register can't read 12 digits, the item would not scan. Even if the barcode is damaged I'm pretty sure Wally World has 100 line scanners to read codes on the most damaged of all tags. I think the latter is the case, people can readily buy barcode printers and software and use them on their computer for less than $200. You can find sites listing the numbers for UPC codes of items from Coca-Cola cans to Tide on the internet for free so I'm sure LEGO must be on there as well. I hope packaging companies start to put in some fraud prevention measures like holograms because printing out a label at home costs the person less than 10 cents. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted May 25, 2009 I think thieves will continue to find a way... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KimT Posted May 25, 2009 Well, in the infamous 2005 case, the person put a fraudulent UPC sticker over the legit one.http://www.co.washington.or.us/sheriff/media/fite100k.htm Good ol' Swanberg. I bought quite a few sets from him. Sadly they were returned by the mail service just at the time when he got caught and I lost some 500 USD worth of LEGO which wasn't returned as he was in jail A shame that there's people around who'd try to run such schemes. I hope they all get caught and punished. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marko Posted May 25, 2009 When I see extreamly good price in bricklink or ebay I always suspect some illegal activity though I also have security system on my home and on my car, complicted key system to my house and I am readying my employees e-mail Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xenologer Posted May 26, 2009 (edited) It isn't possible to use a Sharpie and black stripes out on a UPC, UPC codes are only 12 numbers and if the register can't read 12 digits, the item would not scan. Even if the barcode is damaged I'm pretty sure Wally World has 100 line scanners to read codes on the most damaged of all tags. Well, my understanding is that each of these digits is represented by 7 bars which can be black or white colored to encode a different binary value. A sharpie in theory, can turn a white bar black, thus changing the value of a digit when placed properly. You'd have to be extremely accurate about placement though, and know what you were doing... Also, since you can only change from white to black, only certain number values will be possible, so it would probably be pretty hit or miss as to if the new UPC created is of any use... EDIT, hit or miss is an understatement futher research indicates the checksum at the end of the UPC wuold also need to be altered, furthur limiting the number of possible changes that can be made with a simple sharpie. However a thief might potentially still get lucky and find a UPC that is amendable to change; seeing as how there are price checker scanners around the shop there's plenty of opportunity for him to guess and check. Edited May 26, 2009 by xenologer Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Peppermint_M Posted May 26, 2009 Has this just turned into "How to rip off retailers" ("In theory honest?") topic? It's greedy and wrong to switch barcodes. It is stealing and however much you dislike the retailer (for whatever reason) it never makes cadging a few sets at a lower price through fraud acceptable. So why is everyone talking about how to change barcodes again? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xenologer Posted May 26, 2009 (edited) Not really I'm just an engineer and have a tendancy to obsess over logic puzzles. If I was feeling a little more manic I'd probably actually draw up a table of bit patterns and what they can be changed to... then also cross reference with the checksum digit at the end of the UPC and figure out exactly what percentage of UPCs are vulnerable to switching via white-to-black color changes.... This is the kind of logic/math problem I'd used to get back in college for homework (computer science major), sure does bring back memories. Hmmh, this is the kind of analysis the UPC designers probably calculated when choosing the code format; so I bet there's a white paper on the topic... but calculating it yourself is more fun. Bonus Brain Teaser: can the bit patterns be reorganized for the code digits and checksum digit such that it becomes Impossible for a marker to ever alter a code and remain valid? Edited May 26, 2009 by xenologer Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted May 26, 2009 Has this just turned into "How to rip off retailers" ("In theory honest?") topic?It's greedy and wrong to switch barcodes. It is stealing and however much you dislike the retailer (for whatever reason) it never makes cadging a few sets at a lower price through fraud acceptable. So why is everyone talking about how to change barcodes again? Some of us were just curious as to "how" he did it. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'll never steal or even attempt it. Its just curiosity... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brickthus Posted May 30, 2009 Not reallyI'm just an engineer and have a tendancy to obsess over logic puzzles. If I was feeling a little more manic I'd probably actually draw up a table of bit patterns and what they can be changed to... then also cross reference with the checksum digit at the end of the UPC and figure out exactly what percentage of UPCs are vulnerable to switching via white-to-black color changes.... This is the kind of logic/math problem I'd used to get back in college for homework (computer science major), sure does bring back memories. Hmmh, this is the kind of analysis the UPC designers probably calculated when choosing the code format; so I bet there's a white paper on the topic... but calculating it yourself is more fun. Bonus Brain Teaser: can the bit patterns be reorganized for the code digits and checksum digit such that it becomes Impossible for a marker to ever alter a code and remain valid? About 14 years ago I worked in a bookshop for a while. There was a light pen to scan book bar codes to enter new stock into the computer. Some books didn't have bar codes, so I created them on a BBC Micro with a 300dpi inkjet printer, decoding the ISBN number to produce the correct bar code. If it was that easy for me to do that for books, for a legitimate purpose, creating false bar codes has always been too easy. It used to be that all LEGO set bar codes started with 5 702010 9xxxxc where xxxx is the set number and c is the check digit (easy to calculate). It would have been child's play to create false bar codes for sets years ago. The move by TLG of dissassociating the bar code number from the set number was a good one because it reduced the ease of bar code falsification. Now a thief has to study real sets to get a code to substitute, rather than just creating them automatically from a set number. Obviously it didn't stop all potential thieves! Just have a check digit using one of the digits with the most black lines to reduce the thief's ability to add black stripes. I've seen worse actions in a toy store. I once watched as someone opened two LEGO RC car sets and moved parts from one box to the other. I hope the security cameras caught him too. Mark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blueandwhite Posted May 31, 2009 People like this really cheese me off. The worst thing is that you know that he was going to take these sets straight to Bricklink or Ebay, possibly leaving a bunch of innocent purchasers on the hook for his misdeeds. As to how he pulled this off; I'd wager he simply made a sticker sheet of barcodes from a cheaper Star Wars set and slapped them on the box. I'm not sure what a Wal Mart register reads when you scan a bar code but I'd guess the clerk simply saw something like "LEGO ST WRS $9.98" making it difficult for the clerk to pick up on the thief's actions. What a jerk! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted May 31, 2009 About 14 years ago I worked in a bookshop for a while.There was a light pen to scan book bar codes to enter new stock into the computer. Some books didn't have bar codes, so I created them on a BBC Micro with a 300dpi inkjet printer, decoding the ISBN number to produce the correct bar code. If it was that easy for me to do that for books, for a legitimate purpose, creating false bar codes has always been too easy. It used to be that all LEGO set bar codes started with 5 702010 9xxxxc where xxxx is the set number and c is the check digit (easy to calculate). It would have been child's play to create false bar codes for sets years ago. The move by TLG of dissassociating the bar code number from the set number was a good one because it reduced the ease of bar code falsification. Now a thief has to study real sets to get a code to substitute, rather than just creating them automatically from a set number. Obviously it didn't stop all potential thieves! Just have a check digit using one of the digits with the most black lines to reduce the thief's ability to add black stripes. I've seen worse actions in a toy store. I once watched as someone opened two LEGO RC car sets and moved parts from one box to the other. I hope the security cameras caught him too. Mark See - I was a little shocked by this. And it brought up another part of the discussion (I believe...) Should one say something to store employees if this is seen? Is this as bad as doing the deed (stealing/ changing prices) yourself? Not judging you in particular Mark, as I don't know the situation you were in when you saw this happen... Just curious as to others' thoughts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikey Posted May 31, 2009 Should one say something to store employees if this is seen? Yeah, I think people should, I have done in the past (not Lego, but general shoplifters), but it depends on how much of a rush i'm in. We all have to pay more for essentials and luxuries because of retail theft, so i'm all in favour in grassing them up (but only if i've got time to waste). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
