@nthony

So after buying a cup the other day, winning, tearing off the lip and redeeming, I had an immediately obvious idea on exploiting a glaring flaw of this system and I am absolutely dumbfounded no one has thought of/tried it yet.

I'm led either to believe everyone is clueless or there is some advanced security system that I am not aware of...

So I ask you intelligent people to posit what it may be, and what, if any, are the preventative measures?

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cpjust

Well I heard you could take your "Please Try Again" tabs to Country Style and get a free coffee there; but I'm guessing that's not what you were thinking of?

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@nthony

haha no, something more errr.... exploitive. more along the lines of what you would need to redeem your winning(s)...

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cpjust

Maybe if you had something that could print the same fonts as that under the rims, you could get some empty rims and just print your own prizes on them?

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whiteflags

I'm pretty sure that the restaurant can only redeem certain prizes. If you win 10,000 dollars or whatever you actually have to go to the lottery and redeem your prize. That's when you really go through the rigamarole. If the rims are anything like stamps at all there is some ultraviolet ink on them to make it authentic.

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MK27

...an ex-pat option:

Wow! I can't believe the place is still as much fun as I remember

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cpjust

"ex-pat" option?

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"the internet is a scary place to be thats why i dont use it much." - billet, 03/17/2010

brewbuck

Like, pointing a gun at the teller? That should work.

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MK27

tee hee

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@nthony

^^ heh, I suppose that would be the most direct form of exploitation.

This is what I was refering too! Except after examing the entire cup and rim I could not find any unique ID and the rim was not large or robust enough to embed a chip... so I'm wondering if it is UV after all?

However, when I redeemed my free coffee she merely gave the little scrap of rim I presented her a quick glance over and seconds later I was sipping on a mocha latte extra-grande. The rim is incredibly simple: red & white with a short message in basic font - and they barely change it over the years. Surely a simple print system could be setup to print on waxed-cardpaper for under a couple hundred dollars that would deceive even a scrutinizing glance.
Consider free coffee every year for the duration of promotion - it would surely outweigh the costs.

And yet there's absolutely not a single reference of anything like this ever being attempted or even mentioned before... I feel almost obliged now... :S

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MK27

Yes, but add the expense of all the different hats and wigs you might also need. Coffeeshop employees are often vigilant.

I guess the risk is based on the number of Tim Horton's involved in your daily schedule.

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cpjust

Well since it's only about $1.23 for a medium coffee, I don't think it's really worth it. Especially since you can essentially get 2 coffees for the price of one if you take all your non-winning rims to Country Style for a free coffee.

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"I am probably the laziest programmer on the planet, a fact with which anyone who has ever seen my code will agree." - esbo, 11/15/2008

"the internet is a scary place to be thats why i dont use it much." - billet, 03/17/2010

MK27

They have better jelly-filled's at Country Style.

[aside] Canadians eat more donuts (and burn more gas) per capita that any other group of people in the world.

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whiteflags

Even if it's not ultraviolet, they could ask you for a receipt, which seems simple enough to falsify, but I wonder how right I really am about that. The cash register would never agree.

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@nthony

I think a mocha XL is around $4? one per day would break even in about a month (although probably break the scales too...). Personally, I'm not much the coffee-drinker, but yeah, I'm extremely curious as to why no one has attempted this or something like it.

p.s. is country-style still doing that this year?

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