SAP VP Arrested In False Barcode Scheme

redletterdave writes "With barcode scanning being so commonplace, nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Thomas Langenbach, the vice president of SAP, was found scanning boxes upon boxes of Lego toys before purchasing them. Little did anyone know, the 47-year-old Silicon Valley executive was actually engaged in a giant scam. Langenbach would visit several Target stores and cover the store's barcodes with his own, so when he would bring the boxes up to the register, Langenbach would pay a heavily-discounted price. For example, this tag swapping allowed him to buy a Millennium Falcon box of Legos worth $279 for just $49. Once he bought the discounted Lego boxes, the SAP executive would take to eBay (under the name 'tomsbrickyard') and sell the items. Langenbach reportedly sold more than 2,000 items on eBay, raking in about $30,000. He was finally caught by Target security on May 8, and he was arraigned on Tuesday on four counts of burglary."

Re:Common Sense

[MickyTheIdiot]

So you expect the drones at the cash register to know the prices of a billion different store items? You'd be tough to work for...

Because he needed the cash?

[Nursie]

Surely VP of SAP doesn't need to be doing that?

Some sort of mental illness of thrill-seeking?

Why?

[tekrat]

Really? Doesn't a VP at SAP make enough money to afford his lifestyle? Is he so greedy that he's gotta do this kind of crap? And where does he find the TIME to post 2000 items to eBay?

Clearly, things at SAP must be doing badly because #1) he's not making enough and #2) He's got plenty of time to sit at work posting shit to eBay.

I don't have time to clean out the junk in my house and post crap to eBay. I barely have time to write this post.

Re:Common Sense

[Rockoon]

Which part of $8/hour confuses you?

Work just enough not to get fired, paid just enough not to quit.

The sad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll get off easier than some kid downloading a couple songs.

Re:Because he needed the cash?

[sl4shd0rk]

Surely VP of SAP doesn't need to be doing that?

Once you start pulling 6 digit incomes and near the 7 digit ones, money isn't just about "saving" is just about "more".

Re:Common Sense

[SlippyToad]

This sounds like brain-dead retarded management policy. Stepping over a dollar to save a dime.

They didn't deserve you.

Re:Giant scam?

[Bill Dimm]

How does this compare to the ongoing financial scams being perpetrated on all of us?

Totally different ... he got arrested.

Re:Common Sense

[dominux]

I would expect them to see that the description that comes up isn't what the product is. The price isn't stored in the bar code, you can't change the barcode to make the product lower priced, but you can print a bar code for a cheaper item and stick it on the expensive one. The till would bring up the product description and price of the cheap item, so they need to be selling a cheaper item with a sufficiently similar description that it would not get noticed by a sleepy drone. This is a pretty high risk method of stealing stuff.

Re:Common Sense

[Lumpy]

Welcome to retail sales. Management = retarded.

Re:Common Sense

[PPalmgren]

I should know I use to be one and I was the "odd man out" that would notice these things and say something.

(emphasis added)

I see this line of thinking a lot, and there's a key factor people tend to forget. There's a reason you've moved on to bigger and better things, and a reason some people continue to do that menial work for a decade. When you hire low wage employees for a while, you begin to realize that any "good find" won't be there for long, because they're meant for something more important.

Re:Common Sense

[sideslash]

Cash register workers are smarter and more observant than you may think. Purchasing a $280 Lego set for $50 will raise all kinds of eyebrows. Shucks, I bet some of the workers ran back to see if they could buy one themselves. So Tom was definitely an idiot, risking his entire career and reputation like this. I expect that he would have been apprehended much sooner if not for most people's intimidation by technology -- being unaware of how easy it is to create a fake bar code.

Re:Typical

[x0]

There's a set of rules for the great unwashed, and another for the 1%.

The marvellous book Freakonomics describes how rich people steal, lie and cheat more often, because their sense of entitlement gets there in the first place.

But I'm not sure I'm allowed to post this. It's election year, therefore we're not allowed to say anything that might offend conservatives, Republicans or rich people.

I swear, this 1% shit is getting old. A story gets posted to /. about on guy stealing from Target, and suddenly this classist bullshit gets posted.

Why can't it just be that this guy is an idiot with mental problems? Or just an idiot with kleptomania?

m

Re:Why?

[localman57]

Wow, Doc. Your hourly rate is really, really expensive. Would you consider payment in Legos? I have some Star Wars ones...

Re:Common Sense

[mwvdlee]

You know what else is (mostly) charged by weight? Transport and storage cost.
Adding all that extra weight (and likely also volume) to expensive items also makes them more expensive to produce, transport and store. The additional cost may very well outweigh the occasional losses due to sociapaths.

Re:Common Sense

[dyingtolive]

I think he's pretty accurate actually. Way back in the day when I was in retail, I loved going to work because then I had time to just let my brain 'switch off' and I could think about whatever I wanted to. It was actually a restful break from classes and homework. Nowadays, I dread going to work, because I have a big boy job and I'm paid to think, not to do.

Re:Common Sense

[wjousts]

Exactly this. You pay people barely above minimum wage and expect them to give a shit? I remember being in a Walmart once and somebody clearly had something stuffed up their sweater, and I mean clearly, it was a large bumpy item. He was standing right in front of the customer service desk and the drone behind the desk didn't bat an eyelid.

Re:He was too ambitious

[wjousts]

Except it's not a translation of the word of God, but a translation of a bunch of superstitious middle-eastern tribesmen from 2000 odd years ago (or more).

Re:He was too ambitious

[kiwimate]

Modded insightful and not flamebait? Come on...

This wasn't kleptomania

[KingSkippus]

The guy was making a lot of money off of his theft. Kleptomaniacs typically don't sell stuff on Ebay at high mark-up, they keep, give away, or even donate the stuff the take. Precisely because profit isn't the motive of kleptomaniacs, I believe this guy was just doing it for the cash. Sad, given his apparently position and likely social stature, but he needs to go to jail, not a mental hospital.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:He was too ambitious

[wjousts]

Right, because clearly the claim that it's the work of some ancient tribesmen is the more outrageous claim than the one that it's the literal word of some magical invisible sky fairy. Clearly the burden of proof lies with me.

Re:Time for the Lego Bay...

[orgelspieler]

Have you ever tried to do 3D printing? It will be quite some time before a RepRap will be able to produce the tight tolerances required for the soul-inspiring "snap" of Lego bricks. Even half of the no-name brand bricks can't get it right. Some of them can't even control tolerances enough to keep the bricks from falling apart or not be able to snap together in the first place. It costs a lot more money to make a 1.00 mm part than a 1.0 mm part.

Re:He was too ambitious

[fahrbot-bot]

Sadly, both groups may work on Wall Street: Capitalists and Other Psychopaths [nytimes.com].

Note that there are numerous objections to this opinion piece (probably by other Wall Street psychopaths - ha!) for using under-representative source data and an incorrect interpretation of that data - even after a correction to the article - and those objections may all be accurate, but the article somehow seems at least plausible anyway, if you ask me.