PC eats up the Airmiles with Tesco's system
flaw
It is awful how the most helpful people can be misunderstood.
Take, for example,
the case of PC Shaun Pennicott, the bobby who aimed to help out
Tesco by more or less destruction-testing its Clubcard loyalty
bonus system.
For Shaun Pennicott, point of sale became point of departure as
he racked up 18,000 Airmiles by exploiting a flaw in the
self-service checkouts at Tesco Extra in Watford. The lack of a
barcode reader in the slot for coupons offering bonus loyalty
points meant that Pennicott was able to use the same coupon
repeatedly.
There was a slight complication in that he had to make a
purchase each time, so to get those Airmiles he came close to
camping out in the store. In one three-day period he clocked up 759
purchases of the cheapest Bird's Eye meal deals.
On finding himself up before the beak, the Clubcard copper told
the court that he planned to highlight the loophole in Tesco's
systems and did the transactions to collect examples to show the
company.
Judge Michael Kay was curiously unsympathetic to this defence,
which he called "preposterous". "You were so greedy you would do
virtually anything to obtain Clubcard points and turn them into
Airmiles," he opined.
Surely "greedy" is the wrong word - at nearly 800 Bird's Eye
meals in three days, gluttonous would be more appropriate. Maybe
this case was more about an eating disorder than a flights
scam.
Taking laptop testing to a whole new level
Destruction-testing laptops is obviously a favourite pastime of
our readers. Judging by the mass of letters we have received on the
topic since we first broached it a couple of weeks back, a great
many of you have taken it upon yourselves to conduct the necessary
research into what forces our laptops can withstand.
Perhaps the ultimate test of laptop robustness - and a favourite
testing ground among our readers - is how our portable friends fare
when driven over.
One reader, John Rosie, helps us to picture the
all-too-believable scene.
"The user arrives home, starts unloading the car and places the
laptop down on driveway. Suddenly he remembers having forgotten
some grocery item from the local shop. He hops back into the car,
slips it into reverse and eases back down the drive onto the road -
and over the waiting (and now deceased) laptop."
Rosie even goes so far as to suggest one possible solution.
"Could the introduction of some form of police
'stinger device'
incorporated into laptops possibly hold the key to avoiding this in
the future?"
Although we applaud his enterprising thought, the idea of a row
of spikes waiting to spring out of a laptop sounds more than a
little dangerous.
Downtime feels sure that someone, somewhere must already be
working on a solution, which hopefully involves fewer spikes.
Mark our words: one day all laptops will be car-accident-proof
and bullet-proof. It is simply a matter of time.
We did not propose tagging your first
born...
A reader has told Downtime to abandon plans to develop a
tracking device for lost electronic gadgets. We have been pipped at
the post by the Loc8tor,
which sets up an "invisible safety zone" for your "valuables, pets
or children", according to the website.
All you have to do is tag your keys or daughter or any item you
are not keen on losing. If they move beyond a preset boundary the
Loc8tor will sound the alarm.
Has anyone told the home secretary about the Loc8tor? It just
might stop all the absconding that has been going on.
User tales
from the IT world >>
Contribute to Downtime
If you have a funny IT-related story, we want to hear from
you.
E-mail
cwdowntime@rbi.co.uk