A Nebraska woman allegedly found a lucrative quirk at a gas station pump — double-swipe the rewards card and get free gas!

Unfortunately for her, you can’t do that, prosecutors said. The 45-year-old woman was arrested March 6 and faces felony theft charges accusing her of a crime that cost the gas station nearly $28,000.

Prosecutors say the woman exploited the system over a period of several months. Police learned of the problem in October when the loss-prevention manager at Bosselman Enterprises reported that the company’s Pump & Pantry in Lincoln had been scammed.

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1 point

Sorry but how is this not on the system, let alone a crime?

This slope is slick, if she is guilty of theft due to a system error then whats to stop them from saying the price you bought something at was an “error” later?

It comes down to intent. The reality is that she probably knew that what she was doing was wrong. I mean, come on, do you really think she thought she was supposed to get 7000 gallons of free gas? We aren’t talking about her doing it once and not realizing it.

We can debate whether she should be held accountable, but there’s no slippery slope here and let’s not pretend that she is some innocent victim getting swept up in the whims of some evil corporations trying to trick people so they can send them to jail. She stole gas and she knew it, and probably thought that she could get away with it.

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1 point

Where did anyone say this person was an innocent victim? No one is debating she took advantage here, the issue is no one seems to be putting any culpability on the company who made the pump. The issue here is a slippery slope as it expects a duty to report the error from her that should not be there legally. I could see some other charge like fraud be appropriate maybe, but theft is such a bad thing to charge her with.

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2 points

Where did anyone say this person was an innocent victim?

Explicitly? Nowhere. But for this to be a slippery slope to innocent victims being held criminally accountable for malfunctioning technology, she has to be.

no one seems to be putting any culpability on the company who made the pump.

Is this a joke? This comment section is awash with people saying they fucked up, so she had the right to take advantage of it. I sidestepped this question intentionally, and specifically addressed the claim that punishing her for this would almost inevitably lead to actual innocent people being punished.

The issue here is a slippery slope as it expects a duty to report the error from her that should not be there legally.

She’s not being held legally responsible for not reporting it, she is being held responsible for it for exploiting it to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of gas.

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0 points

Explicitly? Nowhere. But for this to be a slippery slope to innocent victims being held criminally accountable for malfunctioning technology, she has to be.

No she does not have to be an innocent victim for this to be a slippery slope, this is just false equivalency.

Is this a joke? This comment section is awash with people saying they fucked up, so she had the right to take advantage of it. I sidestepped this question intentionally, and specifically addressed the claim that punishing her for this would almost inevitably lead to actual innocent people being punished.

Ah, I did not realize they charged the company with a crime. Oh they did not?

She’s not being held legally responsible for not reporting it, she is being held responsible for it for exploiting it to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of gas.

That is functionally the same thing, if she did report it after the first time I am sure no harm no foul. But if she did not report it in your eyes it is now theft (remember she stumbled upon this). If you think about this critically the number of times should not change the nature of the act.

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-13 points

god, what a softy pathetic serf they’ve trained you to be.

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9 points

The poster made the claim that it’s some slippery slope from her intentionally exploiting a system to fraudulently get free gas, to people being held criminally responsible when a piece software glitches. I pointed out this makes no sense…and this makes me trained to be a pathetic self?

Lol you are truly one of the great thinkers of our time.

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5 points
*

Lemmy has a lot of anticapitalist reactionaries that will justify theft regardless of context. Even when someone steals $28k from a small business. Half the people defending her here probably think that stealing gas is sticking it to the oil companies or something…

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-7 points

balanced nuanced debate in this age only empowers your overlords. they count on you to be rational. if you want change, the pendulum has to swing hard in the opposite direction.

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