Sure, if you work in a place that has as much heavy machinery, dangerous tools, and other hair-raising elements as a shipyard, being required to wear glasses to protect your soft, vulnerable eyes sounds like a good idea. And there are some rules in place for if you lose the glasses, obviously.
Why is it required to talk to your boss’s boss, though? Is it to keep track of all the people who are so negligent that they would lose their precious, precious safety glasses? Regardless, one of the workers found a way to get around that troublesome step by just keeping the scratched-up glasses for a day and then turning them in for fresh ones. He didn’t have to write a note, he got some new glasses, and nobody was the wiser. There were probably some people who were the wiser, though.
Getting a Free Pizza
Sucks to be those people, because they’re missing out on getting a free pizza. The person that was answering the phones, however, knew that he could make out like a pizza bandit, just by putting in his own number when those people didn’t want “the man” to have their number.
Yes, it seems kind of silly not to give the pizza place your number when they’re probably going to have your address, but they can do what they want – they just have to understand that they won’t be earning any free pizzas any time soon. Most places these days cost at least ten bucks for a large pizza, which means it wouldn’t take too long to earn yourself some free pies doing this.
It’s Time to Listen
Yes, this is a clever way to get out of buying CDs at full price, but it seems to be less of a loophole and more of stealing from this company. Still, it fits into the loophole area enough, and here we are. Even now, when you can listen to any music you want online on a variety of different platforms, physical CDs seem pretty cool.
They can’t be removed by the hand of a worker at Spotify or wherever. A bunch of CDs for a single cent sounds like a great deal, even if you’re just getting some mid-range music, that can still be worth it. Maybe there are some hidden gems on those discs. There might also be some really good picks, and all just for saying that you live in Africa.
It’s Fun to Go to the Library
There are few rackets more notorious than the legendary college bookstore. You have to buy them for an astounding amount of money, but when it comes time to sell them back, you get maybe ten percent of that. From huge tomes on computer sciences that cost a hundred and fifty dollars, to an armload of Shakespeare texts that will put a life-long bend in your spine, nobody comes away from the bookstore without some pain.
This person found a way to keep costs low – and, according to him, it’s not like anybody else was interested in the books. Sure, he had to pay some library fees, and that probably earned him the ire of the librarians, but while you’re in college you’re trying to find any way you can to save money, and this way definitely counts.
Free Movies from Bezos
Amazon does a lot of things to try and keep you roped into the worldwide service. If you’re part of Amazon Prime, then you get even more – like this small offer for buying a bunch of things and choosing slower shipping times. You can get movie rentals, songs, or Kindle purchases, but one person found out that you maintain those bonuses even after you cancel the original purchases.
That way, you can sit at home and watch your free movie without having to do anything even so strenuous as getting up off the couch and going to the library. You know, the place where you can literally get a hundred movies for free for a week? Without having to pretend to order stuff?
Keeping Clothes Clean
Laundry is a surprisingly expensive thing to have to deal with while you’re living in an area that requires paid services. Tossing five bucks into the machines every other week becomes expensive fast, so why not game the system? Sure, this tactic is a little underhanded, since those companies run off of the money you give them, but they’re still offering a five-dollar credit to new email addresses, so sure, save some cash.
If you’re smart about how much laundry you do, you might be able to get through five dollars in a couple of weeks, but it also might only be enough for a single week’s worth of clothes. Of course, how much work is it making new email addresses every week? Not a whole lot, but is it worth the trouble?
Working Around the Glasses System
Sure, if you work in a place that has as much heavy machinery, dangerous tools, and other hair-raising elements as a shipyard, being required to wear glasses to protect your soft, vulnerable eyes sounds like a good idea. And there are some rules in place for if you lose the glasses, obviously.
Why is it required to talk to your boss’s boss, though? Is it to keep track of all the people who are so negligent that they would lose their precious, precious safety glasses? Regardless, one of the workers found a way to get around that troublesome step by just keeping the scratched-up glasses for a day and then turning them in for fresh ones. He didn’t have to write a note, he got some new glasses, and nobody was the wiser. There were probably some people who were the wiser, though.
Riding for Free
People use public transportation a ton, which means a number of things. It means that a lot of money goes into the accounts, and a lot of money has to go out of the accounts for things like salaries, upkeep, cleanliness, and other things. Thus, there is a never-ending tug-of-war between the people who are in charge and the people who have to use it to get from place to place.
The constant subway warriors of Sydney found a loophole that resulted in being able to ride for free for almost an entire week until the people in charge of the system made a quick change, which meant that those subway warriors ruined it for everybody else. Thanks, subway warriors! You did it.
Seems Like an Important Piece
How many people get through their lives without using the internet at all? We can’t really come up with many people, especially in a first-world country like America. We’re sure there are some people out there who get by, but the vast majority of people need the interne
Even back in the dial-up days, it was becoming more and more important thanks to email, message boards, and the infancy of social media. It was nowhere near as fast as it is now, but unlimited dial-up for ten bucks (a month? It’s a little hard to tell) is a really hard deal to beat, especially since the speed is the same no matter which plan you pick. If we found out we could get that NOW it would almost be worth it.
A Very Roundabout Airline Ticket Method
We don’t know why the government was so excited about getting the Sacajawea dollar coin into circulation, but it sure worked out well for people who wanted to earn some frequent flier miles using a credit card. We’re told that the limit might have been more than a thousand dollars, too – maybe up to five thousand.
We’re not sure how many miles that amount will get you, but does it matter? You order the coins on your card, and then use the coins to pay off the purchase for the coins themselves. It’s foolproof, and you end up with a whole lot of airline miles that you can use to take the entire family on vacation. First class, all without spending a penny.
That’s Just Smart Investing
If you don’t know anything about investing – bonds, stocks, bills, things like that – then you’d do yourself a service by learning a thing or two. You don’t have to dive into investing immediately, but it’s always a good idea to have a little bit of knowledge. Putting your money to work for you is never a bad idea.
You might also be able to figure out something like what this guy did: use a no-interest card to buy bills, pay off the card, and pocket the interest. We assume the reason for this is the I-bonds have a higher interest rate, so you buy a ton of it on a card, don’t have to worry about paying the interest, and make out like a totally legal and investing-savvy bandit once the term is up.
Beating the Tax Man
Sure, it might have taken a little bit of convincing to get the entire family in on the deal, but once you tell them that you’d be getting around having to pay all those taxes, there are a lot of people who will become more interested.
The fair market value of a car is usually how people are taxed these days, which means that this smart family probably got around a pretty big bundle that would have gone to the government (and you KNOW that they would have used that money properly, wink wink). It probably took a healthy amount of paperwork, but they also got around having to pay who knows how much just to keep a car in the family.
Keeping Your Record Clean
A moving violation like a speeding ticket isn’t a huge black mark on your record, but if you’re a lead foot then they can start to stack up quickly. That will mean heftier fines, and could even lead to things like jail time for certain activities.
We have no idea how people in New York were able to find this error, but some sussed out a way to keep any points from landing on their record, even if they do disappear after a year. Just keep from cashing a five-dollar check, and you’ll never have to worry about accumulating points that you don’t want. Five dollars isn’t a lot, so even if you’ve been pulled over a couple of times you don’t really have to worry about the points accumulating.
Now Here’s a Tasty Loophole
Extra burritos? Say no more. We are there with bells on, and it seems like getting half of a burrito for lunch and saving the other one for dinner is a good way to cut down on costs even more. Do you really need a full burrito for lunch? We bet you don’t. Obviously, food is one of the biggest things in a person’s budget, so being able to find ways to save on groceries is smart.
This is a great example – what about milk gallons? Is two halves more or less than a full gallon? Look at prices per ounce, look at coupons, look at what is on special that week. Your bank account will thank you, and your stomach won’t care. It doesn’t have emotions, it’s an organ.
Messing with the Schedule
Our modern world requires appointments. It doesn’t matter how much you hate having to call a place up and ask them to put you on the schedule, it has to be done. Medical appointments, fittings, even things like car work all have to go through this method, and some places aren’t happy if you need to cancel an appointment at short notice.
There are ways around the penalties that they’ll hit you with, however, such as rescheduling and then canceling instead of just canceling. There are plenty of places that might still not be happy about you pulling this kind of trick, but it could still save you a couple of dollars from certain places. And we all know what a dollar saved is from good old Ben Franklin.
They Know Their Way Around the Store
For some reason, there are items that you can’t return for money, but can still give back for store credit. We don’t know why, but those are the rules sometimes. While a lot of people might take umbrage with this idea, there are others who know how they can still get their money back. They just pick up some items that cost about the same amount, buy them, and then come back to the store and return them for the cash value.
It’s probably difficult finding things that will equal the exact amount of money that you spent on the original item, but you can still put a little bit of cash in your pocket instead of just spending it on more stuff.
We Bet the Price is About to Go Up
This guy took Algebra I twice which means you get a pretty good grasp on the fundamentals of math, and he was right on the money when he realized that two dollars was, in fact, fewer than six. He was able to work around the system and get the drink he wanted without paying any more, but we wonder if he’s going to be the reason this place starts charging for tonic water.
What kind of place doesn’t charge for tonic water anyway? We can understand not charging for normal water – that’s pretty common – but tonic water is a little more than H2O. But, if it’s their bar, it’s their rules, so they can charge whatever they want for drinks. And the bartender probably knew exactly where he was going and didn’t care that much as long as there was a tip involved.
Eating on the Airline's Dollar
You must salute someone who does something like this. Not only did this enterprising man discover a way to get a couple of nice meals out of the airline, he maintained the plan for a full year! Incredible. He had to swap out the flight every week, maybe even every day, but he did it and he just kept eating at the VIP lounge.
The story says that even though the airline finally caught on, they admitted there was nothing to be done about his scheme. It also tells us that he was able to cancel his ticket for a full refund after the end of the year, though who knows if he could have kept the deal going. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to, but a free, fancy meal is worth quite a lot if you don’t have any other options.
I Have the Slip and Everything
While this is less of a loophole and more of “making the best of a bad situation,” it’s still close enough so we’ll give it to him. This guy followed the rules to the letter, he just didn’t do what the teacher wanted. He had a late slip, had never signed in, and there was nothing that the teacher could do.
We understand that there has to be a moment when you become officially late, since as a kid sometimes your single job is to go to school, but marking someone as tardy a mere thirty seconds after the bell rings seems a little bit particular. Maybe even cruel. Did this protest work? It was a teacher. No, of course it didn’t.
Time for Breakfast
There are plenty of reasons why a company will put this sort of rule into effect – they don’t want people to be late. They need people on the floor or wherever to keep the products or services flowing, and being late means there can be issues. On the other hand, something that is this strict is going to backfire, as we can see in the short tale here.
Being five minutes late is so common for so many people it might as well be every day, so if you’re going to get dinged the same amount, why not just take your time? Hit a park on the way to work and enjoy the morning sunshine. There’s nothing like it. Yeah, you’ll get to work, but there are more things to worry about than work.
Maybe We Should Change that Rule
Yeah, it seems like that little penalty wasn’t all that well thought out. Also, how bad must it have been during this time period (which we see to be 209 to 208 B.C.) for these commanders to realize they’re going to be late, shrug, and just pull an Uno reverse card?
Well, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse at that time, since it was following the death of Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty. This rebellion, and a number of others, helped to pave the way to the Han dynasty, which was one of the great golden ages in the long history of China. We assume the Han dynasty did not include this tardiness equals death rule.
And That Was When a Scholarship Meant Something!
Loopholes come in all kinds of forms. This one seems less like a rule that missed a spot, and more like something that was still on the books even though it shouldn’t have been. Still, it worked out great for this guy and who knows how many others. We’re guessing that he was going to school in the sixties or seventies, which meant that a scholarship covered way more than what one of them covers nowadays.
Back then, college was like a thousand dollars a semester, and not fifteen thousand. That might even be on the low end of things now. Good luck trying to find scholarships that will cover an entire semester anymore unless you get REALLY lucky.
Parking for Work Can be Complicated
It’s actually a little hard to tell if the “pros” that are mentioned in this story are referring to the actual pro players who play baseball or football, or if it’s referring to people who know the secrets while going to see the games. The wise ones, the experts. The people who have all the tricks.
People who have gone to see professional games know that the tickets to get in are just part of the overall cost – there are also snacks and drinks to buy, as well as transportation. If you have the chance to save on one of those and support your favorite team, why not take advantage of it? It’s also sort of amazing that a parking ticket costs less than legal parking.
Cutting Down College Costs
Parking for four hundred dollars for the entire year isn’t a crazy amount of money, but if you’re in college it’s worth finding every way you can to save. Going to that big university is costing quite a lot of pretty pennies. This person decided to roll the dice on not getting ticketed too many times, and found that he or she was saving a ton of money.
If the numbers are correct, it was a little over ten bucks per ticket, and four or five tickets for the whole year. Not even sixty dollars compared to four hundred big ones. That’s a decision almost anybody could make, even if it is technically against the law. But, hey, pay the tickets as you get them, and there’s not much people can do to complain.
They Love Their Language
There’s no other detail about this story that we can share, other than the Irish are pretty particular about making sure that their language survives the passage of time. Despite the fact that this Romanian man might not have even spoken that language, the case was dismissed because the local constabulary didn’t follow the rules.
Gotta say it in Irish, even if that makes zero sense to someone who lives on the far side of Europe from the Emerald Isle. We don’t expect this loophole to come in handy much – mostly because we don’t expect to go to Ireland and get drunk, but also because they probably know their lesson by now. Just to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again, they’ll give all the charges in Irish, too.
Trading Microwaves
This person took care to point out that he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on anybody – he just wanted a working microwave, and discovered to his delight that he could save a little bit of money while picking his earlier purchase back up. He wasn’t even intending to get the exact same microwave, he just bought one of the cheaper ones and found it was the exact same one.
Those big box stores do a lot to keep people coming in the doors, and offering discounts on items that have been sold and returned is just one of many ways you can save some cash if you have a big purchase to make. It would have been better for him to keep using his old one, but not everything can be perfect.
Getting Colorful
Despite how simple paint might seem to be for the uninformed, it isn’t as easy as just color, paintbrush, and surface. No, that stuff has to be made and mixed properly, or it’s just not going to be any help for your painting project, whether it be a canvas or the side of a house.
However, it turns out that you can just mix it up yourself if you find it like this person did. Thus, if you find a can of paint in the bargain bin that doesn’t look like it has been mixed correctly, you might have just saved yourself a bunch of money. Less a loophole and more of just a way to save some cash. But that’s not so bad, is it?
Small Gains
An extra quarter for every dollar you put in isn’t a lot to most people – it’s just twenty-five cents – but work at it enough and you could end up racking up a pocketful of cash. It might be enough to buy a comic book or some candy or something like that, but once the machine runs out of money then you’re stuck with that amount.
Or someone might fix the machine, and then what? Now you just have a bunch of quarters. Of course, this person only took advantage a few times – most likely stopped by the number of dollar bills in his or her possession. But if you could multiply your money by twenty-five percent, tax-free, you might take the chance, too.
Making Bank with McDonald's
Now here’s a loophole to be proud of. All this guy had to do was send McDonald's some letters and get free Monopoly game pieces. He didn’t even care about the pieces themselves, he just wanted the Best Buy bux that came with them. Back in the middle of the naughts, Apple iPods were one of the hottest pieces of tech around – remember, this was before Smartphones.
If you had enough of them and were able to resell them at slightly under market value, you could make a ton of cash, which is exactly what this guy turned to. Making seventeen thousand dollars from something like this is incredible – that’s serious cash. Stick it in a savings account for a few years and you’ll have even more, or get a new car or pay off a school loan or something. There are seventeen thousand possibilities.
We Should Probably Fix That
When the story says Class A drugs, it doesn’t mean stuff like a little bit of grass. We’re talking about the hard stuff, the dangerous stuff. The “Breaking Bad” kind of stuff, and the kind of thing that needs to be illegal or a lot of people are going to get hurt.
It’s a little amazing that a country could somehow have a loophole when it comes to the sale, possession, or use of such dangerous substances, but laws can get complicated. That’s why there are lawyers. Maybe the lawyers are the ones that put the loophole in – there are plenty of tropes out there about high-powered lawyers and the things they can get up to when they aren’t at work. Or even when they are!
Stay in School, Kids
If the above explanation turned into a confusing mash of numbers and symbols, here’s how it went: Once the jackpot got big enough, a number of smaller prizes were made available to shrink the jackpot, known as the roll-down. Get enough tickets, and your chance of getting any prize goes up – get a certain number, and the law of averages says you’ll earn a certain amount per ticket.
Just get the proper number of tickets to maximize how much you earn per ticket, and suddenly you’re making a good bit of cash. It’s not much of a loophole, more like an intense study of the numbers and theory behind the lottery, but it still meant these people earned some quick cash without having to worry too much.
Fine Print Made Finer
There are lots of stories about someone doing this sort of thing – someone receiving an offer, changing a detail here or there, and then going about his day knowing that he had pulled one over on the man. This one ended up working in his favor, since the judge said that the company should have checked to make sure everything was still copacetic, but we wouldn’t recommend trying to do this nowadays.
There are laws now in place that basically say if you do this you’re not operating in good faith, and the agreement can be thrown out. Or, the people who write the agreements know to add details saying if you change something without authorization, you can be sued.
Time to Buy a Vacuum
A lot of these loopholes have to do with promotions that companies offer the public, and it’s because they can get so complicated that at least one person can figure out how to make the most of it. Yes, getting a six hundred dollar plane ticket for buying a vacuum cleaner for a little over a hundred bucks is a loophole, but it’s really just not the best marketing plan.
It all depends on what kind of plane ticket you want to buy, and from where you’re starting, but there were far too many people who realized they would get the much better end of the deal – so much so that Hoover started getting into legal trouble before the promotion was shut down.
Triple-Axel Loophole
This story seems like one where everybody knew exactly what was going on, and while the judges might not have liked it, they just had to sit there and watch as Torvill and Dean slid around on their knees for twenty seconds before rising to their skates to, we believe, go through a performance that earned them the gold medal.
We wonder why they needed to start on their knees – had they just found the perfect song? Did they like the idea of rising up to their maximum performance level and wowing everybody who was watching? Maybe they just wanted to flaunt the rules a little bit, and found the perfect loophole for doing so – there’s nothing like a little bit of buzz to increase their chances.
Don’t Lie, We’ve All Done It
If there’s a way to get extra time on an assignment, university students are going to do their darndest to take advantage of it. This is usually just because they wasted all their time not getting their work done, only to realize they had an assignment due that night at midnight. When the department made this kind of announcement, students rejoiced, since they knew they had a free excuse for an extra twelve hours if they needed it. And, apparently, they oh so often needed it.
If this is something like a computer science or biochemistry assignment, we can see why they might need the time, but there are plenty of departments that were probably just full of people who didn’t use their time properly.
Time to Save Some Cash
Fifty bucks is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a nice meal, a week of groceries (if you’re buying at the right place), or a whole lot of other things. Someone who is applying to graduate school is going to be looking to save as much money as possible everywhere that he or she can, so saving fifty dollars on every application sounds like a great deal.
And apparently, all you have to do to not pay that amount (which can easily turn into hundreds of dollars depending on the number of graduate schools you’re applying for) is be an applicant for any number of organizations. You don’t even have to be accepted. If you’re going to be applying to graduate studies, take note of this loophole.
Spend a Little to Get a Lot
Our friends in the United Kingdom rejoice – free meals! Free movies! All for spending a pittance on insurance for something that you might not need. Getting two-for-one tickets saves you anywhere from five to fifteen pounds sterling, and free meals during the majority of the week will be an even better deal depending on where you like to have your dinner.
It turns out that you might not even have to buy the insurance, too: You can click buy, register for the reward programs using the name of the service you were going to get, and then back out of actually buying insurance. We can neither confirm nor deny if this loophole is still active, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it was closed up.
Earning Your Concert
The big downside to this kind of “loophole” is that if someone comes along who is only a little bit better than you at almost any song, you just lost those tickets. Still, this person knew the best way to earn what were most likely some pretty expensive concert tickets just by playing a video game that, clearly, he or she already enjoyed or had played a great deal.
Pick an easy song and play on Expert to get maximum notes, and watch your score skyrocket. And we don’t even have to get into things like the proper use of star power or note stuffing or how to get the best solos or things like that.
The Best for Less
If you’re a savvy shopper, you know that there are some grocery stores that are better places to buy some things. Stop into Kroger, for instance, and you can find some nice beers for less than you might have to pay for a true pack of them. Way to save money on the good stuff, everybody.
However, the story originally read “super nice bears” before we adjusted it. As someone else pointed out, it shouldn’t be that hard to determine which bears are super nice and which ones are not. If they’re trying to rip you open and get at your tastiest bits, you can assume they aren’t very nice. The nice ones wear red shirts and eat honey.
Saving at the Golden Arches
Pricing for some stores can be a bit strange. Why would a fast food restaurant like McDonald's – one that is, we must assume, built around earning money – making twelve nuggets and a fry less than a ten-nugget meal? There are a lot of different ways to explain this, such as the smaller nugget option being a loss leader.
If you take a close look at the different prices at your local Mikey D’s, you might find that you can save on the same amount of food or get more food for the same amount of money. Every store is going to have prices a little different, so you’ll have your work cut out for you if you travel, but it can be done!
Air Hockey for Everyone!
Did the people who ran this little arcade know about this loophole? Almost certainly. Did they care? We can confirm that they did not. As the story says, the people who worked there didn’t seem to mind, and it’s not like using the air hockey table was costing the place all that much.
Most of the funds the kids had went to the snack bar anyway (which is where most places like arcades and movie theaters make the majority of their money), so they didn’t mind that the youngin’s were getting a few extra games out of the tables. The story goes on to say that the place would have fresh watermelon for free during the summer, so it sounds like the place was pretty dang nice all around.
The Controversial Sweater Rule
There are lots of places such as schools around the world that have some pretty strict rules about your appearance and the clothing you wear, but there aren’t a lot of places like this that will be so uptight about it that they’ll look at the tuck amount of shirts while the students are sitting down for lunch, like this place did.
One enterprising student realized that he or she could use a big sweater to hide whether or not a shirt was tucked in, and it caught on like wildfire among the student population. On the other hand, if you wanted to take advantage of this, you had to wear a sweater all the time. Yeah, the school year is over the winter, but there are plenty of months when it can be pretty darn warm, especially inside.
Making the Most of a Bad Situation
Not everybody is made out to do well at math. Once they start using letters, things start to get complicated in a hurry, and that’s not even close to the worst that you can get if you continue on with calculus into college and beyond. Pre-calculus is where people who aren’t as numerically minded start to wonder about other paths in life, and this was true for this person, too.
Thankfully, the school’s very handy Accounting I course had just enough math in it to be counted in that study, so this person got to learn about stocks and how to write a check while also having the right kind of courses on his or her transcript to get into the proper college.
We’re Sure This is Helpful Somehow
Excellent! Free buns! This is great news, because who doesn’t love a pair of free buns? People who have gluten allergies, we guess, but it’s not like they’re going to fall into getting a pair of free buns.
You have to deal with the little electronic food kiosks and go through all the steps outlined here in order to get a free pair of buns, and we’re going to guess that you also have to get other food as well to hide the fact that you just scored some free bread from a fast food restaurant. Then you can do something like eat the free bread, or feed it to some hungry birds, or throw it like a Frisbee that will naturally decompose. The options are almost endless!
Floating Their Way to an A
We had to cut this story down a bunch for space, but the teacher went ahead and gave them all the extra points they had rightfully earned under the rules she had set down. She probably put a cap on the number of extra laps that future boats would be able to earn by doing this (and rightly – did they actually pass physics if all they did was build a single really good boat? Many would say no), but she stuck to her guns.
This person was close to not only failing the class, but also losing the college acceptance that he or she had been working toward. Not a bad student, just not that great at the things that physics requires. It’s not for everybody. Boats, though? The student knew boats.
Let There Be Sandwiches
Not only did this person get a whole lot of great chicken sandwiches out of this sneaky trick, but he or she then learned from the mistakes of others – the fine print is pretty important to a whole lot of people. Some pointed out that this is, actually, coupon fraud (copying a coupon is generally regarded as a no-no), but the people who were accepting the coupons didn’t really seem to care.
Mom didn’t seem all that happy about it, but while it might have seemed underhanded she couldn’t figure out why (that would be the whole coupon fraud thing, Mom). This person could only take advantage for so long before moving away, but we bet eventually the store would have stopped accepting the false coupons.
Just Trying to Pass a Class
It always seems a little arbitrary when it comes to which tests are open-book or closed-book, and we’re not sure why. Yeah, maybe CPR tests need to be closed-book, but will you ever have to know your math formulas during a life-or-death situation? We bet that has happened one single time in the history of the entire world.
If you’re working at NASA or something like that, you should know your stuff, but for most students, it just isn’t necessary. This student realized the best way to pass a test was to do it in the library with a sub that didn’t have all the details, open up the book, and get to work. The student might not have learned the stuff that well, but knowing how to work around rules can be just as important.
Failing On Purpose
The internet has been a boon for students and a bane for teachers ever since it started entering into our daily lives. You can look up all sorts of information...which means that you might not be learning it yourself, just copying it from somewhere else.
This student had a class that he or she hated so much that the better idea was to fail it, and then just take the online course in a week to get the credit anyway. Since it was all online, it could be done without too much effort – just look up the answers or find some way to make things easier if you have to do the work yourself.
Up Close and Personal With the Music
Some might call this a loophole that a fan used to get backstage, while others might just call it lying. Of course, it didn’t result in any bad stuff, like people getting hurt, it was just for a fan to get a more personal look at a bunch of music heads that they were a fan of.
Guns N’ Roses might not have cared too much (we doubt it’s the first time someone has snuck backstage at one of their concerts), but the security guys from Soundgarden couldn’t let it go any further. If all you have to do is print a little bit of art and some words and have access to a laminator, then a lot of people are going to be sneaking into concerts more.
This One Seems Kind of Obvious
A lot of these loopholes get closed pretty quickly, since they’re often against the spirit of the promotion in question, and if they’re of a certain kind they can cause some serious financial damage to the store. This one is the kind of promotion that should have been spot-tested a little bit before it was released to the wider public.
A lot of people wouldn’t want to do something like this, since it seems immoral, but there’s nothing legally wrong with it – you’re buying a $25 gift card, and you should get a free six-inch sub, right? Right. But, that many six-inch subs can be a drain on a store’s finances, which aren’t always backed by the full corporation. They also might not be that good for your health, now that we’re talking about it.
You Have to Check Those Tickets
We get the feeling this was a wild shot to try and not pay an almost two thousand dollar parking ticket, and it just barely fits under the meaning of loophole, though we’re sure that there are a lot of people out there who would just call this lying or cheating or something like that.
Still, if the ticket-taker took the ticket, then it counts as a loophole. Did this person have this clever tactic in mind, or was it a mistake to park in the short-term parking while this person was gone for three months? Most people wouldn’t try to leave that sort of thing up to chance, so it was probably just a mistake.
Technically, Those Spirals are Loop Holes
We don’t think even the weakest explanation of loopholes counts getting two bags of fifty-cent almonds instead of one out of the machine, but this person still looked at the rules and regulations and found a way to get a little more than the fifty cents he or she was carrying to the table.
And hey, smoked almonds are supposed to be pretty good for you. Snack away, my friend, because you found a way to get more than a measly fifty cents can usually get you. This tactic also seems a bit easier than trying to stick your arm up the flap at the bottom to grab stuff.
Getting All the Help She Needs
Not only did this little lass figure out a way to get around spending her parent’s hard-earned money on things in an app, but she was able to do it from the comfort of her own home. All she had to do was a little bit of googling to find pictures of the dolls, though we bet it also had something to do with the barcode on the dolls.
We’re not experts in this sort of thing. Still, this is a loophole of the highest caliber – sneaking past the rules while also technically doing exactly what is required of you to proceed. If we’re ever on an epic quest, then we want this person in our party.
No More Drinks for the Soldiers
When it comes to rules, those who are in the military have more than enough to deal with. Of course they’d be daft hands at finding ways to sneak past some of those rules and keep more beer than the superiors want around at hand. And of course, once this simple loophole was discovered, an updated list of rules was sent out to everybody in the barracks, which meant this clever corpsman probably had to knock his stash back to the acceptable amount.
It makes sense – if you’re going to be in active duty, possibly fighting combatants, possibly doing who knows what else, you might want to keep your head clear, and thirty cans of beer won’t keep your head clear.
Punking the Parking Police
Colleges and universities have a lot of ways of getting as much money out of their students as possible, and their exorbitant parking prices are one of the most common ways. Of course, those organizations have to provide upkeep for the surfaces, so it’s not like they’re just pocketing all that many, but it can still be tough for students who are just barely getting by.
This group figured out a way to save on parking for all of them. Even if there were only ten people who were in on this project, a total cost of 258 dollars means a mere $25.80 cost for all of them. If it goes up to twenty people, then each person only has to pay twelve ninety – an amount that even a broke college student should be able to scrounge up.
Getting Back the Car
While this is a perfect story to include here, it seems a little bit more like this person was actually following the rules, and the towing company was trying to pull a sneaky on him or her. There is such an underhanded thing as predatory towing, where companies drive around and snag cars they think they can hold long enough – usually cars that are owned by poor college students who don’t have any other way to get them back than to shell over a hundred bucks.
It’s underhanded, but this person found a detail to fire back at the towing company. They probably didn’t even remember where they picked that certain car up, much less know the name of the owner of the establishment. The idea that the owner was present was laughable.
Dogs Pushing the Limits of the Law
There are dozens, probably hundreds of stories similar to this one about dogs that are constantly trying to find ways to be as close to the people they love (or, more likely, the food that they love) while technically following the orders that come down from on high. A tail on the carpet means the dog is out of the kitchen, a foot on the ground means it's off the couch.
Dogs that will inch closer to the good stuff until someone notices and tells the dog to back off. They’re the cutest loopholes out there, and it’s better since they know the rules and know to follow them (usually), but still do their best to push the boundaries of the rules.
Favorable Parking
How long will it take for the people who work at the department store to wise up to this clever little tactic? If this person shops in a different department every time he or she steps inside or makes sure to check out with different people, then it could take quite a long time before anybody catches on.
Plus, it’s not like they’re doing anything wrong – the store might not like that this one person isn’t really intending to buy anything, but he or she is still in the store, and we assume that means every once in a while there will be an actual purchase made that this person needs.
Probably Won’t be on Zillow
Even these days, spending five hundred thousand dollars on a house goes a long way, but this is in Texas, where the real estate costs aren’t anything close to as high as they are in a lot of the rest of the country. That probably gets you a whole lot of rooms, a whole lot of space, and maybe even some extras like a barn.
Is the house all that nice? Probably not, or somebody else would have been living in it, or a bank would have tried to figure out who bought it. And, obviously, when they saw that nobody owned it, they would have snapped it up like an Irish Setter heading at her food bowl. Good luck pulling this off yourself, since we bet there aren’t many houses out there like this.
Buoyed By a Bursary
Ask any college or university student if they would be okay with an extra ten grand a year, and you’ll never hear a no. And this wasn’t even ten grand a year, it was ten grand a term! TWENTY grand a year!
A bursary is a little different from a scholarship – really the closest we can get to it is that it’s a grant that is funded by the organization itself, not an outside group. Finding something that will accumulate all the other bursaries that you’ve earned and lump them together up to a cap is going to be the most popular option by a country mile, which explains why this university decided it would be best not to offer it for too long.
No Using the Blood
Yup, this one makes sense. The arresting officers had lots of other options for taking evidence of drunk driving other than a blood test, and it was up to them to realize that they should have been covering their tracks. We’re surprised that a blood test is the first thing that the police would go to, but maybe it made more sense in the moment, or it didn’t get taken until the driver had been moved to a station or something like that.
On the other hand, it seems like this evidence is more of a catch-22 than first expected, since pointing out he was too drunk to consent would also prove he was drunk driving. Oh no – it doesn’t make sense!
It’s a Magical World for Somebody
Once again, not exactly a loophole, but it still let a bunch of kids run ahead of the long lines that Disney World is famous for. We assume these kids were pleasantly walking to their appointed space so that they could go on their favorite rides, and not taking advantage of this anywhere and everywhere they could while running and shouting and making fools of themselves.
Oh, and just in case you’ve already started planning a trip to Disney World because of this story, there’s basically a zero percent chance this is still an option for guests. If Disney hasn’t supplied their maintenance guys with something on their phone to get past the lines, then we’d be really shocked.
Keeping the Crew Fed
Finding a way to get McDonald’s for free – especially while you work a hard, physical job outside – sounds like a Godsend for a lot of people. Picking up a drink for a single dollar and being able to feed your entire crew immediately would make you the most popular person at that job site by a country mile.
How long do you think it took for these guys to get sick of the Golden Arches? McDonald’s makes good fries and an okay burger, but even if the food is free we imagine that you can get a little tired of it after a week or two. Maybe grab a salad once in a while to refresh the palate.
More Email Addresses to Use
A quick caveat while trying to take advantage of this strange loophole: not all email servers will support it. Some of the big ones, like Gmail and a couple of other major providers do it, but be sure to test this trick first before you start trying to sign up for stuff. But, once you know that it works, you can make a new Facebook account sign up for services, or trick websites into thinking you’re a new customer in order to get a deal on the stuff sitting in your shopping cart.
In the same way, Gmail doesn’t “see” periods that are before the @ symbol, so theman@gmail.com and the.man@gmail.com are seen as the same email address. Just a way to make using the internet a little easier for you.
Here, Fill up This Bag
While it seems like dipping sauces are cheap enough to not show up on the receipt, they will often cost money. It might seem like too much trouble just to save a quarter or two here or there, but every little bit can add up to a lot.
The people working at the drive-thru know that those dipping sauces probably aren’t worth their trouble, and they’ll be kind enough to supply you with one or two if you ask nicely. You could also offer to pay with your credit card for the twenty-five cent purchase, which we hear might as well be like tossing a sack of angry wasps through the window for how much trouble it can cause.
A Loophole for the Rich
We’re not saying that this is something only the rich can get away with – it seems like it could very well work for lots of people. The limit is probably nothing that even someone in the middle class will worry at all about. It’s the kind of thing that is only going to be an issue for someone who is trying to move a whole lot of money really quickly.
Well, if you ever find yourself needing to get a lot of money out of China, just try using this loophole. We imagine by now it has been sealed, since China hates it when people are in control of their own money, but you might as well give it a shot.
Beginning Continued Schooling
Sure, it’s technically a loophole, but it’s more of just a way to get out of paying a ton of money for a bachelor’s degree that you don’t really need. The perfect kind of loophole – less work for more accolades, and you also don’t have to worry about the kind of food that they serve at college cafeterias.
A few thousand dollars is still a pretty good chunk of change, so you can’t do this sort of thing just willy-nilly, but if you have a plan in mind and you’re sure you’ll be able to get into the graduate program you want, then it can be a big time- and money-saver.
Quenching Thirst is Against the Rules
We wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something in this agreement that is a little bit against the rules when it comes to being able to distribute water. Like, we get that a place can have an agreement with a company to only sell their products and ignore competing products, but water is a little bit different. You need it to live, you see.
But, it wasn’t long before a bunch of people realized that the operative word in this little plan was “sell.” If they just offered to give the water away for free, there’s nothing that anybody could do. What are they gonna do, call the police on people that are giving water away for free? Nobody is going to get arrested for that.
He’s Still Spoken of in Hushed Whispers
We might be missing a little bit of context for this story, because it seems like this guy would regularly go to his favorite pizza place and get twenty at once. Multiple times. How do you eat that many pizzas? How do you store that many, if they’re for carry-out or delivery? We must be missing some kind of detail about how this deal or the many deals went down.
Even if you show up once and get twenty pizzas the waitresses aren’t going to know your name. Maybe this person got pizzas for the whole team, or, like, the entire school or something like that. Maybe he just really, really, liked pizza. Like, too much.
Driving the Law Crazy
We had to think about this one a little bit before we got it, and we still aren’t all that sure it will work everywhere. Plenty of countries, states, and even districts are going to have different rules about this sort of thing – often a red light camera will keep the car on file and just send it to whoever owns it and not care who’s driving it.
Also, hey, maybe think about not running so many red lights? Yeah, this is a possible loophole, but we feel like it would be a little easier if you just didn’t run as many red lights while driving. Are you that busy? Do you have to keep your foot on the pedal for that long? Slow down, lead foot.
It’s Just Free Money at That Point
This classy gent or lady not only figured out a way to basically make free money and nabbed twenty bucks from it, but then told the store about the potentially very costly loophole without taking too much advantage of it. Good on you, sir or madam.
According to the story, the staff was laughing about it as they started fixing the issue, and this person got to enjoy twenty free dollars. We have no idea what kind of restaurant this was, but this could have been anything from a couple of nights of free tacos to a nice meal with a loved one, depending on the kind of establishment. Either one sounds like a pretty nice option.
Being Smart About Being Late
What this kid did was, finding himself at four tardies thanks to bad traffic, just let the absences rack up without either number rolling over to five. That way, he or she was able to enjoy some relaxing time at home without ever earning detention. There was never any detention time, and the kid didn’t even have to worry about breaking the rules.
There was nothing wrong going on here, other than a concerted effort to avoid school in favor of never getting detention, but that’s more of a moral stance than anything else. There are some who might say get to school late anyway because you are supposed to be going to school, but maybe it’s worth it not having any detention on your record.
Doing Time and Earning Time
Yes, this certainly seems like a loophole...but it turns out there are a whole lot of companies that go about this route, since just giving people an amount of PTO per week is a lot simpler than calculating how many hours they actually worked that week and giving a percentage of the max.
Maybe there are computer systems that can do that sort of thing, but we bet there would also be some man-hours involved in the project, and if there’s a way to automate a system and keep costs lower, that’s the way most businesses are going to go. It’s way, way simpler, and then you can take time off and still earn more of it.
Picking Up Litter Can be Worth It
Everybody who has been to a big music festival knows that there’s always drinking, and there’s always lots of trash lying around. What better way to combine these two things into a money-making venture than to pick up all the cups and bring them back for a good amount of money?
Keep your eye out for litter that you can snag, and you might just be coming away from the place with more money than you walked in with. We don’t think you’ll be able to come away with a profit, since tickets to these things are never that cheap, but it can at least help to offset the cost. Plus, you’re keeping garbage off the ground, which means that the people running the venue or festival don’t need to put in more work cleaning up.
An Accidental Loophole for the Fashion-Conscious
We’d like to commend the uncle from this story for putting his favorite tie in the donation box at a thrift store. It was his favorite tie! Such a giving person. And he was rewarded by finding that very same tie (we assume) on the rack at the same thrift store an entire month later.
This guy must have a particular sense of style if his favorite tie was still there after a whole month, but we guess most people don’t go to the thrift store to get new ties. Maybe we should be going to the thrift store more often if even favorite ties can linger in obscurity for an entire month.
Be Smart With Your Money
The most amazing part of this is that the casino would just let them walk in the coupons, cash out, and leave. Usually places that offer that sort of deal make sure you use them at the place of business – like a more mature version of Chuck E. Cheese tokens not having any monetary value.
But, we guess that’s why they decided to take advantage of this loophole. They were keeping that money for things that they seemed to really need, like their house and car, so it’s not like we have a problem with it. They bought the coupons for the amount they were offered, then redeemed them for what they were worth at the casino.
Seems Like a Free Flight
Before you jump to the website of your favorite airline, make sure they actually have some kind of voucher program like this one. If it does, sure, go for it if you think it will work. If it doesn’t have this kind of program, you’ll either be forced to cancel your ticket and take a hit, or fly to wherever the original flight was headed so that you don’t lose out on the money you spent.
Flights that are likely to be overbooked won’t be heading to distant corners of the world, but they might still cost a pretty penny. However, if you're correct in your guess, you could do what this guy did and fly to a vacation destination without spending anything.
Sneaking One Past the Sensors
It seems like it could do some damage to the car, but as far as the story goes, there isn’t anything bad that came out of this way to get past paying a ton of cash for the crime of driving an old car. We don’t know what the cost was for those dry gas additives, but they must have been far less than the amount he would have been fined if “the man” had found he was driving a car that wasn’t releasing the proper stuff into the air.
If he hadn’t done this, he might have found himself forced to buy a new car, which surely would have cost way more than a few things to dump into the gas tank.
Paying Nothing for Housing
There are actually a lot of apartment complexes that do this sort of thing – sign a lease and get the first month for free. It’s nice. There are sometimes some strings attached, like the lease has to be for a certain length, but there could always be some ways to get around those details, like this handy military loophole.
This guy got to live in what might have been a very nice apartment for free for a full month – that’s nothing to sneeze at. Depending on where it was (though we have no idea WHEN it was) that could have been up to a thousand dollars, which is a good amount now, and was worth far more back then.
Points That Are Worth Far More
Even simple credit cards have plenty of these kinds of features available for the savvy consumer. Spend money on gas, or food, or housing, or travel, and you’ll get points you can spend on gift cards, hotel rooms, airline tickets, meals, and more. Of course, these cards also have systems set up with certain stores, but the stores don’t care about the points themselves – they just want you to come in and shop.
So what if you don’t actually keep all the items you buy? It’s no skin off the stores’ nose if you return the stuff. As long as the credit cards don’t notice, then you might as well take advantage of that loophole and rack up what must be a metric ton of gift cards.
Yup, I’m Totally Sick
There’s no doubt that more than one of you out there have thought about doing this, just to make sure you get everything you’re owed from an employer. Just take those three or four weeks that you’ve earned and sit at home, working on your tan or, as this person wisely decided to do, prepare for the next job.
As long as you actually can cancel your resignation, you might as well make sure that you get everything that you worked so hard for, right? Right. So, this person did exactly that. It’s a pretty obvious loophole, and we know that a lot of people have this kind of cash out before they step away from a job, but they’re still able to get the most they can out of a place they’re leaving.