It turns out that, no matter how clever you think you’re being, there’s very few workarounds to paying for something at a store. This was the harsh lesson learned by a 19-year-old man named Adel, who went to a Nice, France grocery store and attempted to pull one over on the local staff. Well, two over.
Adel’s plan was to grab a PlayStation 4, an item not uncommon in grocery stores in Europe, take it to the self-checkout lane, and use the kiosk’s weight scale to certify the item as a fruit. Rather than ringing it up as a €340 retail price, the kiosk weighed the box and instead determined it to be about €9, or roughly $10. The checkout machine spit out a barcode for Adel to slap onto the box on top of the existing barcode, scan it in, and walk off with it. Afterward, he sold the PS4 to someone outside the store for €100 to pay for a train ticket.
It amazingly worked! Then he went back the next day to do it again.
This time, security stopped him before he could pull the same trick and police picked him up at the store. His sentencing was expected to take place last week in Montbéliard, France, but Adel didn’t show up. The judge ruled a suspended sentence of four months, meaning that as long as he doesn’t do anything else in the meantime, he’s likely to get the sentence dismissed. The guy who bought it for €100 seemingly got a really good deal, though.
[Source: Europe1]
Source: Game Informer French Man Receives Suspended Jail Sentence For Using A Fruit Scale To Change PS4 Price