Software Exec busted for Lego resale scam

[Kuzeh]

Wow...


https://gma.yahoo.com/alleged-lego-...s-website-083530484--abc-news-topstories.html

Alleged Lego Scammer Sold 2,100 Boxes Through Website, Cops Say
By NEAL KARLINSKY |

The California software exec arrested for allegedly switching bar codes on high priced Lego sets resold them online through "TomsBrickyard," a site so popular with Lego buyers that they rated his service "excellent."
Thomas Langenbach, who was the vice president of SAP Labs Integration and Certification Center in Palo Alto, was arrested May 8 outside a Mountain View Target store.
In a plot more complex than a Lego Death Star set, police say Langenbach used a home computer and printer -- and lots of Legos – to amass a small fortune reselling the toys.
"Believe it or not this will be our first tech exec in a Lego case," Police Chief Scott Vermeer told ABC News.
Lagenbach, who lives in a gated multi-million dollar home in San Carlos, Calif., is free on $10,000 bail but has refused to comment.
Police said that Lagenbach, 47, was repeatedly captured on store surveillance video with expensive Lego sets in his cart at retail stores. Detectives said he did something called a "ticket switch," changing the price by allegedly putting his own barcode stickers on boxes so he could pay less. For example he would replace the barcode tag for a $249 Millennium Falcon Lego set with a tag for just $49, police said.
He then resold the sets through the TomsBrickyard web site, according to police. Prosecutors said he sold 2,100 Lego items for roughly $30,000 over the last year. Police are investigating to determine how many of those sets were obtained through fraudulent bar codes.
On the day of his arrest Langenbach had allegedly placed three phony bar codes on items, bought one of the boxes, and placed the other two back on the store's shelf. He had 32 fake bar codes in his car as well, according to Cindy Hendrickson, a supervising deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County.
Police photos from a search of his home show dozens of homemade barcodes neatly organized, plus stacks and stacks of brand new Lego sets.
"It certainly looks like an ongoing enterprise … to think we caught him the only five times he did this is very hard to believe," Hendrickson said.
Langenbach has so far refused to comment, now that he is free on $10,000 bail and has been is facing felony burglary charges -- not exactly child's play, despite a whole lot of Lego.
It's not the first time Legos have been targeted by scammers. In 2005, a Reno man was arrested for changing prices with phony barcodes for nearly $200,000 worth of Lego sets.

 

[The Ween]

I was just on that site about a week or so ago!!

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

what a dumbass

 

[ProgMatinee]

this was making the rounds at work the other day because we use SAP.

 

[Boba Ben]

This journalist is right, the Lego Death Star is extremely complex.

 

[Niltusk]

First thing I thought of was the fellow Freak on the Star Wars lego thread with his Lexus filled to overflow with lego boxes.

 

[thenammagazine]

The cashiers didn't notice a sticker over the barcode?

 

[crows]

The cashiers didn't notice a sticker over the barcode?

why would they, a lot of stores do that, they just check out the item and get the money, i could see it happening

 

[The Ween]

why would they, a lot of stores do that, they just check out the item and get the money, i could see it happening

I know at Walmart if an item is closed out, it has a barcode sticker over the original one.

 

[VASith]

The cashiers didn't notice a sticker over the barcode?

Wallmart cashiers aren't the brightest bulbs in the box.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

Lego is a helluva toy

 

[The Ween]

Wallmart cashiers aren't the brightest bulbs in the box.

If I were paid and treated they way they are, I wouldn't worry myself if someone were ripping them off either. Just scan it and go to the next thing. There are a lot of products that have stickers over the barcodes or the barcodes are actually stickers on the package. I'm sure this guy was really good at it to rip them off this much.

 

[darthviper107]

Wallmart cashiers aren't the brightest bulbs in the box.

The managers are the worst. The way Walmart functions is a joke, I'm surprised they've gotten as far as they have.

 

[thenammagazine]

Wallmart cashiers aren't the brightest bulbs in the box.

That's true. It's a step down from fast food.

 

[Ktjn]

Wasn't he also selling those legos on sleezbay with a fake name?

 

[CTO15]

why even do this. He's a vice president of software company with a multi million dollar house. Was this for fun? What a moron.

I could see this barcode trick working on those "self checkout" stations that some stores have

 

[Darth Cruel]

I think it is funny that some of you all hate Wal-Mart so much that you are keying in on that aspect of this story...


and it happened at your oh-so-high-class Target with the more brilliant checkers.