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Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

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Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#111

Post by squibonpig »

petterroea wrote: post #55

It's always funny when people publish source code and have a disclaimer saying "You CANNOT use it for bad!". When is the last time a criminal read such a disclaimer and thought "Oh right, guess this isn't for me"? Sure, at least the developer can say they did say so, but it doesn't matter. To me it seems more like avoiding responsibility. You published the tool, and by doing so you changed the world, even minutely, a…

Yeah but like it's fine if two people use a flipper zero to get cheaper groceries. That's not actually a bad thing.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#112

Post by bell-cot »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #68
miki123211 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL and this depends on the jurisdiction, but in many places, the penalties for shenanigans like these are far steeper than for outright theft, as it's considered to be financial fraud.

Some retail chains, of which Dollar General is the poster child, have one price displayed on the shelf and a different, much higher price at the checkout register. Links: > Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed suit against Dollar General, claiming deceptive and unfair pricing at its more than 600 retail stores throughout the state. The lawsuit alleges that Dollar General violated Missouri’s consumer prot…

>> [...] the state department of agriculture & consumer services, had fined Family Dollar after two previous visits. But North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection, offering retailers little incentive [...]

So - if the state didn't have any blabbermouths on staff, and spent some time training, how many "inspections" could they speedrun in an hour?

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#113

Post by conductr »

culi wrote: post #94
dfxm12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that we have to do extra labor and expose ourselves to this kind of legal risk all because a grocery store doesn't want to staff workers. It's not even like they pass these savings onto us...

That's true, grocery stores made record profits during covid. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of an "open sourced" grocery store that's extremely transparent about every detail. Think electronic price tags that give you a complete breakdown of the cost of an item, cost of labor, cost to account for "loss", over/under-supply, etc. I feel like there's a niche out there for hyperinformed consumers

I think with this openness the problem is there’s so many fluctuations and estimates that average consumer would think you’re being dishonest even if you weren’t. They’d see that you acquired an item for $20 and could never quite understand why they have to pay you $50. They’d see the plethora of line item costs as nickel and diming even if many are absolute hard costs. They’d see the estimated numbers as inflated.

There are coop grocery stores where members get to see the financials at a high level and make price changes that make the market sustainable. This is usually some form of shared ownership but I think this is a better way to achieve similar goals.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#115

Post by pwg »

vel0city wrote: post #101
saintfire wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every self checkout around here has an employee staffing ~6 terminals. They're supposed to be watching for things like that. Usually theyre just staring vacantly into space, which I get, that job pays nothing and provides 0 mental stimulation. When you see a TV being purchased, though, it wouldn't be hard to just watch that it in fact got checked in as such.

> Usually theyre just staring vacantly into space That's far from my experience. Usually they're overworked with a backlog of customers having some kind of issue needing attention. It usually takes a few minutes to flag one down when I need them to take a coupon or check and ID, because they're already busy doing something for another customer.

Same experience here. The one "monitor" employee is busy nearly full time helping out with some issue some customer is having, such that they simply can't be monitoring that everyone's items are ringing up as the actual item instead of "bananas".

But every terminal also has a spycam hanging above it to either "give the appearance" of a big-brother overlord watching to encourage honesty, or is recording everything so that someone can review footage later if some issue is discovered.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#116

Post by tesseract »

culi wrote: post #94
dfxm12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that we have to do extra labor and expose ourselves to this kind of legal risk all because a grocery store doesn't want to staff workers. It's not even like they pass these savings onto us...

That's true, grocery stores made record profits during covid. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of an "open sourced" grocery store that's extremely transparent about every detail. Think electronic price tags that give you a complete breakdown of the cost of an item, cost of labor, cost to account for "loss", over/under-supply, etc. I feel like there's a niche out there for hyperinformed consumers

That's pretty much what a food co-op is supposed to be.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#117

Post by vel0city »

pwg wrote: post #115
vel0city wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually theyre just staring vacantly into space That's far from my experience. Usually they're overworked with a backlog of customers having some kind of issue needing attention. It usually takes a few minutes to flag one down when I need them to take a coupon or check and ID, because they're already busy doing something for another customer.

Same experience here. The one "monitor" employee is busy nearly full time helping out with some issue some customer is having, such that they simply can't be monitoring that everyone's items are ringing up as the actual item instead of "bananas". But every terminal also has a spycam hanging above it to either "give the appearance" of a big-brother overlord watching to encourage honesty, or is recording everything so…

Depending on the store those cameras are definitely processing the feed locally to flag shady stuff. I've had a few times I've done something "odd" (not stealing anything but definitely not the normal flow of scan a single item and put in a bag) and have had those systems freak out on me, and the only part of it being weird it would have known was the camera feed.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#118

Post by neuralkoi »

Aboutplants wrote: post #29

I was in college when self checkout became a thing and it took us all of about 45 seconds to realize that you could just check everything out as bananas. Steak was weighed and priced at 4011 (banana code) as the stoned teenager cashier paid no attention. Everything on the receipt was literally Bananas

Yesterday I went to Walmart, and at the self-checkout the system quirked out and an attendant came by. She reviewed some sort of draconian overhead cam video of me trying to locate a tag out for a product to scan. Gave me "guilty until proven" innocent vibes. Are these systems actually effective?

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#119

Post by babylon5 »

Aboutplants wrote: post #29

I was in college when self checkout became a thing and it took us all of about 45 seconds to realize that you could just check everything out as bananas. Steak was weighed and priced at 4011 (banana code) as the stoned teenager cashier paid no attention. Everything on the receipt was literally Bananas

What about the cameras on those things? Overhead? Did you pay cash?

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#120

Post by xenocratus »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #92
DangerousPie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, you have discovered the concept of shoplifting!

if a store does not want to hire capable staff to perform an essential function, they should not expect laypeople to perform that action for free (or at higher cost, as we've seen with grocery prices in the US as human cashiers are reduced) at the same level as a trained staff member. we do not have to accept this decision to reduce staff and raise prices as a matter of course. plus, if you see somebody stealing food…

> plus, if you see somebody stealing food, no, you didn't

Don't tell me, in your view the cost of shoplifting is begrudgingly covered by those evil rich people who own everything, right? It's not passed down to customers, and therefore affects those who obey rules, and especially those who are in a precarious financial situation to begin with, right?

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