In Australia most retailers discount specific items for “members”. Being a member is free but you need to sign up with your contact details. They will give you a card but no one carries a million cards so cashier’s just ask for your phone number.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority administers phone numbers in Australia and they publish a list of phone numbers which may not be used by telco’s and are reserved for the exclusive use in TV shows, films, and creative works.
I made a note of one of the numbers in my phone, and provide that when asked. Loads of other people are doing this so the number is always registered at every shop.
The conversation usually goes:
- cashier: are you a club member?
- me: yes.
- cashier: what’s your number ?
- me: <ACMA number>
- cashier: oh. wow. there seems to be hundreds of people with this number. what’s your name?
- me: oh really? who’s there?
- cashier: uh, nigel, john, luke…
- me: I’m Luke.
I’ve been doing this on a weekly basis since reading about it in another thread (on reddit) a few years ago. I’ve never encountered a problem and I’ve received thousands of dollars in discounts. I would’ve gotten those discounts anyway but would’ve had to sign up with my personal number in order to receive them.
“I forgot my card. Can I use the store card?”
“Sure”
Success
One time at Kroger the cashier lady refused to let me use the store card, so I had to sheepishly look back towards the line, and the woman behind me let me use hers. I gave that cashier such a look.
This sounds like a different set up to the way things roll down under.
Cashier’s just assume that no one carries their card, and they ask for your phone number to look up your membership. IDK what a store card is.
In the US, this typically works with (zip code)-867-5309
That’s genius. Love it, I’m using it for sure. Thanks!
Issue with that, at least in the u.s. is that stores often give you points that accumulate that can be redeemed for certain dollar amounts or a big discount on a single purchase.
My typing class had early computers that graded on speed but not accuracy. So you mashed the keys and got 140 keys per second, and an A in the class. So now I’m a 50-something year old who types like a 13 year old. Somehow the rest of the class didnt figure this out.
Similarly, in my typing class, they’d have you type the same paragraph a few times. The program didn’t notice copy and paste.
My typing class wanted me to learn how to type with my hands spaced just right, using different fingers to reach each key. But by then I had already been using a computer and just kind of developed my own way of typing efficiently and quickly mostly just using my index fingers. They’d correct my hand position whenever they saw me type, but I was one of the faster typers in the class, so I’d use my own way for the tests and passed easily. I’ve tried to force myself to go back and type like they told me, but by now I’m just much more used to my own spurious method. 🤷♂️
Had a computer savvy friend watch me type once and he audibly went “what the fuck”
Same here
I used to be exactly like that, could even type blindfolded with my own weird way of typing. I eventually learned touch-typing (i.e. the correct way your teachers were trying to teach you) and a more ergonomic keyboard layout (Colemak), I haven’t gained any speed, but I do notice that I get a lot less strain on my wrists and fingers. So if typing is something you do a lot on a daily basis, then it’s worth learning to do it properly to not injure yourself in the long run.
You can get a kindle with ads for cheaper than ask them to remove the ads.
…or get a Kobo and never have to jump through the hoops
Exactly. The kobo is the king. The kindle is just spyware
Straight up.
Then just turn on airplane mode and download calibre. Also, talk to a lady named Anna about her archive.
Or install koreader?
Dude, you just made my evening. I have an ad-riddled Kindle that’s now going to get an upgrade today!
Aww, and you’ve made mine
and then never connect it to a network right?
then ask them to remove the ads
Sounds like they’ll just roll over if you complain, then you can connect it if you do desire
crazy how a single letter changes the whole meaning. Pretty cool loophole if it’s as simple as asking.
Don’t be a dick to service workers. Your entire life will be better.
This isn’t a loophole–just how any decent human being should behave.
I think working retail should be a mandatory thing like how military service is mandatory in some countries.
Everyone should have to serve their time doing retail so that they can have a bit of empathy
Not really “loophole”, more like common sense
But a service worker knows lots of loopholes, and they can help you take advantage of them or choose not to bring it up if you’re treating them badly.
Or basic manners. Although, if you want to consider basic manners a loophole, I’m okay with that. It doesn’t matter how you get there.
If your bank can only deposit a certain amount of a check the same day and you need it all just cash it and deposit the cash
Great tip, if you live in the 1980s
WTF
It’s still valid today.
Payroll fucked up and I didn’t get a deposit a few weeks back. They gave me the choice of waiting 2 weeks and having the deposit added to my next paycheck, which is totally undoable, or they would cut me a paper check that day.
I took the paper check.
I decided it would be easiest if I could use my Bank apps Mobile deposit but it only allowed me to access $500 of it that day, the rest had to wait until the next business day which was Monday.
If I would have thought about it I would have done it this way so I could have had access to the whole check before the weekend.Sorry, can’t imagine having a banking system that’s a decade behind fuckin Eritrea or Kazakhstan and thinking it’s the norm 😂
Why be such a jerk to OP?
It’s not OPs fault they live in an underdeveloped nation, they’re just trying to get by.
Not drinking isn’t one of the 12 steps
Yep!
But commiting yourself to the idea of surrendering to some kind of God is.
So you can fail AA as a sober atheist, but pass it as a religious, functional alcoholic.
Great system.
Working as intended
12 steps of what?
Addiction recovery if I had to guess, in this case alcoholism.
The 12 steps of drinking. Not drinking’s not one of them.
Eye, but not drinking feels like a loophole insofar that I’ve abstained for over 5 years and went from no money to having a down payment for a house saved up, all while improving my health by leaps and bounds. Can’t get a beer gut if you don’t drink 👌
I’m probably 5 years sober … and yes you can :(
Do they still call it a beer gut when you don’t drink? Shouldn’t they call it a pizza and fries gut or something?
I’d say it’s mostly energy drinks,
but I found a really good zero alc beer that is also putting in work so technically still a beer gut.
If you want to cancel a subscription for whatever reason, worst comes to worst (dark pattern nonsense like trying to cancel an Adobe subscription) you can call your bank and request for a replacement card
Use a privacy.com virtual credit card. Gives you full control over each card. I use one for each subscription, especially those I don’t plan to renew.
I did this, a gym membership could “only be cancelled by the manager” I just went online and changed the credit card number on file. Moved away never looked back
The trick with Adobe is to use PayPal… you can then cancel the recurring payment yourself.
Sure, but then you need a PayPal account, and fuck PayPal.
I learned this because I used to get drunk and lose my credit card.
I work for a UK bank, and we automatically provide your replacement card details to all subscriptions, for example Netflix, Spotify, adobe, amazon prime, gym and many many others etc. The reason for that is that if you lost your card or it expired, you would otherwise have to spend ages updating the card numbers with all your providers. We call the subscriptions ‘recurring visa’ and if you ask your bank to place a recurring visa block, it’s quick and easy and we won’t let your named merchant take further funds. No need for a new card. However, if you are in a contract and you deny the company access to your bank card, they may demand that you pay for the rest of the contract still. They won’t be able to get the money from the bank tho.
However sometimes they allow cards that are being used for recurring subscriptions to keep going even if you’ve had the card replaced. I know from experience Chase does this
Specifically ask the bank to revoke authorization codes.
It’s supposedly for convenience. More for the people charging me than me, but convenient nonetheless.
My American Express card was compromised a few weeks ago and while they sent me a new card I was still able to use the old one at stores, use mobile payments, and recurring payments could process. The only thing I couldn’t do was use it online. Even after I received the new card, recurring transactions were able to occur.
Tell them it was lost/stolen. Don’t dispute any existing charges, but for security reasons they should still block any new charges made against the old card.
On my old commute, there was this one really long red light with a u-turn and merging road to the right you could take. Since the merging road was there, a right turn was allowed.
On busy traffic days, you could take the u-turn if the light was turning red and just go and skip it with a right turn. Pretty sure it pissed people off, but it was legal as far as I could tell.
Same thing when there’s a really long light with a right-turn lane to a much less busy side street. If you get there shortly after the light turns red just turn right, go partway down the street and make a u-turn, then make another right back onto the main street.
I’m not sure if I’m picturing it correctly, but this just sounds like a Michigan left, which is how a lot of intersections here are designed (left turn is forbidden, you have to go past, u-turn, and turn right).
I’m not sure if that’s what they’re talking about or not. The use of u-turn here is weird. The ‘pissing people off part’ makes me think it’s what I usually see people do.
They come up to a red light, they turn right, make a u-turn, and turn right again. Which is basically the same as having driven straight through the original red light to begin with.
My brother-in-law didn’t want to carry his jacket around at Disney World, and he didn’t want to get a locker for it, so he had his dad turn it in to lost and found. At the end of the day, before leaving the park, he picked it back up.
Somebody else could’ve taken that.
The lost and found at my school sometimes gathers interest on some items. Umbrella on a rainy day got 4 people claiming it’s theirs. But a golden chain is still winning at 8 people claiming it as theirs.
That’s why you hide the item and get the person claiming it’s theirs to tell you a piece of identifying information about the item so they can prove it’s theirs.
Welp, my school just sends everyone pictures of the items and waits who claims it.
That’s a different problem entirely, your school needs to rethink things. Kind of funny though!
Why does the school need to rethink things?
It’s in their interest to get rid of the items quickly so they don’t have to store them.
Who gets them doesn’t matter to the school.Because it’s unethical, and because if they just said “hey we have a lost object; if you are missing anything, come by and describe it” it would help reunite more items with their rightful owners.
Yeah and also if the school really doesn’t care about it getting back to the rightful owner, they should just throw everything out.
That just sounds like a flea market.
Ingenius! Even more ingenious: every time you leave go to lost and found and pick up a free random jacket.
I enjoyed paying $1.50/mo for YouTube premium by signing up with a VPN to Turkey 🇹🇷 but that’s not a thing anymore 😢
What do you use it for? Adblock? Use uBlock Origin
Video download? Use yt-dlp, or one of its many GUIs, such as Tubular (Linux) or Seal (Android)
It was nice for iPhone
Fair enough, if you use Apple, you’ve bought into capitalism; you can’t be saved.
Lol, lmao
Why pay the bastards, just block their ads? Plus you can get sponsor block and bring back youtube dislike
VPN via Turkey used to work on other subs too. Often something like 1:10 discounts. Most of these loopholes are closed though.
It’s still very possible for iOS in app purchases if you use gift cards and a Turkey iTunes account. Some regional pricing has been adjusted but many have not
Currently I found a glitch to get near-free infinite mobile data usable in my country via 3 different mobile carriers giving me far superior coverage as well.
I got a Czech T-Mobile SIM card with the purpose of receiving SMS verification codes. Unlike cards in my country, Czech ones don’t need ID card registration. The cheapest one was an IoT SIM card, so that’s what I took. I found I could get signal basically everywhere with it, since they have multiple roaming partners (Slovak Telekom, O2 and Orange).
For shits and giggles, I’ve used that 200MB it came with since it’s available in EU as well. And that’s when I discovered the 64/32 kbps limit after using up the data isn’t getting applied outside of Czech Republic. It just still goes at full speed.
Charged at 0.00CZK:
The difference with IoT and regular SIMs is that low speed. IoT SIM cards get that reduced speed while regular ones have a hard cut-off with more data amount. Attempt with regular SIM after using up the data:
So really, I can just fully use 80MB for 39CZK (1.59USD) and keep going:
But there is a caveat: Permanent roaming charges. If for the past 4 months the SIM is used more than 50% abroad, T-Mobile can start charging these charges. This year it’s €1.30/GB without VAT. But I can probably just keep getting new SIM cards each few months.
But I am being nice and still mostly using my regular carrier with 300GB of data. I rather keep this as backup. The wholesale market data cap is that €1.30/GB in 2025, so the carrier could get charged up to €390 for that same amount by their roaming partner. Regardless, I am not giving them equivalent of €1.55 for just 80MB either.
My work has guest WiFi but I don’t have access.
However, if i connect to it on my phone, enable my VPN on my laptop, then enable USB tethering from my phone i have unrestricted access on my laptop. lolIn the USA the FASFA is used to determine how much financial aid (grants, or zero interest loans) someone can get for university
Unfortunately it looks at parents assets as well as the adult students assets.
Unless
- over the age of 25
- military veteran
- married
So the loop hole here is obvious, two students should get married, then their financial need will be totally unmet and get the highest level of benefits
I know someone who had to do this. Her parents were abusive and were refusing to do the FASFA paperwork, holding it over her head for something. She had already been in college a couple of years at this point. So, she found a friend she trusted and they got married, allowing her to get the funding she needed to continue to attend college.
My girlfriend was in a similar situation. The people at FASFA will work with you if you can prove that your parents will not comply and you aren’t financially dependent on them. As long as your friend wasn’t living with her parents, she likely didn’t have to get married.
She had tried working with them and they weren’t giving her any other choice.
The US is so trash.
by such a large degree it’s frightening. Waiting for the Bell riots to happen is taking forever
I’m fr curious if this can work. If it does, it seems beyond impossible to find a 25 year old college woman who would even want to marry
Two 18 year old students about to start university get married. I think it can even be same sex, marriage is marriage.
Remember Marriage isn’t for life! You and your partner could get married with the understanding this is just a college marriage.
That’s a whole abuse of the purpose of marriage, though
A loop hole that is technically correct is still correct.
What is the purpose of marriage?
Legally it is a shortcut to establishment of a number of implied contracts, tells the courts how to unwind those contracts, and rights. In some cases the implied contracts are more effective than written ones. Medical decisions and visitation rights being first ones I can think of.
I sm not a lawyer.
Two people bound together for life for the purposes of creating a family
Only two? That seems needlessly restrictive. Is it for religious reasons? Church and state should be separated.
If it was for religious reasons, I would have specified it as a “man and a woman”
Also, if it’s more than two, that’s not a marriage; that’s a group chat.
So divorce shouldn’t be allowed in this philosophy?
Only as a last resort. You shouldn’t get married without intending to stay together for life.
Yeah, you can miss me with the religious bullshit. This is a legal loophole in a legal system.
If it was for religious reasons, I would have specified it as a “man and a woman”
“You shouldn’t use marriage to stop yourself being legally chained to your parents. The purpose of marriage is to legally chain you to your spouse.”
If people could “divorce” their parents you wouldn’t have to worry about this.
You’re thinking about this all wrong. The age of marriage and childbearing have been going up. Think of the kids who would just decide fuck it might as well just stay married and do this. This could be the arranged marriage of the future.
“Hey, let’s just get married to be eligible for benefits. Yeah, we’ll just pinky promise that we won’t ever abuse the hell out of our ‘partner’ who we now share every single responsibility with. I also took out a huge loan to buy a boat, why are you asking, dear? Half of it is technically yours, why aren’t you happy?”
two penniless students are judgement proof, so even in this scenario when they divorced there wouldn’t be anything to recover. As a 18 year old with nothing, as long as you don’t have kids, there is almost nothing to lose.
It’s not about losing stuff, it’s about gaining stuff. Debt, mostly.
Alright, so, in Texas you’re not allowed to own an opossum as a pet. There is no license for owning a pet opossum (they’re “fur-bearing animals”). However, there is a license that’ll let you kill opossums for their fur. Furthermore, said license allows you to trap them. The interesting part is that there’s no legal requirement for you to actually kill the opossum if you trap one. You can trap the opossum and take possession of it for however long you like.
So basically a hunting license (might have been a trapping license?) lets you effectively own an opossum as a pet in Texas!
Edit: also, yes, opossums are as soft as they look, which is why people used to hunt them for their fur. I got a chance to pet one and it was about as soft, if not softer, than a cat. Also very boney, like cats.
An ‘exploit’ along somewhat similar lines works for having a cat (or dog) as a pet in Waahington State:
Tons of apartments or rented out rooms of houses will say that they do not allow cats.
Basically, if you can go to a therapist, counselor, paychologist and tell them hey I really love my cat, he/she cheers me up when I’m down, I’d definitely become depressed if he/she ever ran away or I had to part ways with him/her…
Now this cat is your registered emotional support animal.
This costs you nothing beyond the normal cost of visiting your mental health specialist.
By law, it doesn’t matter what a landlord’s stance on allowing cats (or dogs) is, if it is officially your emotional support animal, it can live with you, and the landlord is legally barred from charging you a pet deposit or monthly pet rent/fee.
I kinda get the impression they bite, a lot.
They like to show their teeth but they don’t like to bite
they hiss and act like a bad ass but they are naturally bug eaters, not a lot of fight in them
I’ve never hung out with one, but they were common in my neighborhood growing up and they were honestly pretty nonviolent. They just play dead instead of aggressing , but I also never pushed them to interact
My friend has one and nope, no biting! He pretends he’s a raccoon (she had a herd of raccoons as well)
I grew up in FL and had a “pet” opossum for a while. Her mom was hit by car when she was a baby and she crawled up to our front door during a rain storm. My mom was heart broken when she realized what happened so she let us keep her till she was old enough to be released. She was super cuddly and would crawl up on your neck and lick your hair. We partially potty trained her using dog pee pads. The only down side is she liked to borough in our couch so we had to move the couch often and clean it out.
Once she was an adult we would let her out at night when other opossums in the neighborhood were around. She usually came back in the morning and would eat a bunch of food. One day she didn’t come back so I hope she integrated with the local opossums and lived a happy life.
I’ve pet a lot of opossums. Not been bit by one… But those teeth are scary.
Nope, they’re mostly all bark, no bite. You have to actually harass them to get them to bite you, even if they’re showing their teeth. Their bite strength is one of the lowest among mammals too. That said, supposedly their teeth are actually really sharp.
