Software Exec Charged In Lego Bar Code Scam

[Greg Schubert]

First there was this: http://news.lugnet.com/mediawatch/?n=1968 in 2005

and then this:

“A Silicon Valley executive was charged with four felony counts of second degree burglary after allegedly creating his own barcodes and placing them on Lego toys at Target stores to get major discounts.”

http://news.yahoo.com/software-exec-charged-lego-bar-code-scam-131139992–abc-news-savings-and-investment.html

Don’t people learn.

[Josh]

That was back in May 2012

[Greg Schubert]

Josh wrote:

That was back in May 2012

Yeah, my newsfeed is really backlogged. 🙂

Actually, a student just told me about it today and I thought he was talking about Bill Swanberg, I had not heard about this other guy.

[Matt Redfield]

“The detective credited the sharp eyes of Target’s corporate security people for tracking Swanberg and catching him in time for the holidays.

‘Hopefully, we kept him from spoiling some kid’s Christmas,’ Dolyniuk said.”

Not sure how this would spoil some kid’s Christmas – Swanberg was just gonna sell the sets at MSRP anyway, right? Unless they mean because all the sets would be returned to their respective Targets, where parents could then buy them for their kids’ presents…

“When authorities searched his home they found hundreds of boxes of unopened Legos. The volume and the types suggest it was not for personal use, according to Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson.”

This sounds disturbingly similar to my house, or Chris on the Dollar’s store. Only difference being, we just pounce (wait, sorry – “swoop”) on sales to snag a bunch (oops – “haul”) of sets, rather than switching bar codes.

“Hendrickson is not sure why Langenbach would go to such great lengths. ‘It’s a bit of a head scratcher, the complexity of the crime and the amount of resources needed to commit the crime leave you scratching your head’, she said. ‘Mr. Langenbach is a VP of a successful company, living in a nice home and making money gainfully and in his free time creating false barcodes and going into Target stores and stealing Legos.'”

Um, yeah. It’s called “supplemental income,” lady. Jeez. 😉

[Dan Efran]

So sad, when greed gets the better of our brethren. I bought some parts from Swanberg back in the day, wish I’d been more suspicious of his prices! Now his name is a dirty word in my personal dictionary. As in, “Langenbach was charged with four felony counts of Swanbergery….”

[Author]

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