Is it a relatively common thing? I rented a copy of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon from a box and all that was in there was a paper copy of the disc. Does this happen to anyone else, or am I just cursed?
Amazing that their security measures are that weak. You'd think they could devise a way to prevent that from happening.
^^ good thinking! :smile-new: that's a display only item, how you was allowed to walk with that is beyond reason. :concern: i'm no security specialist/analyst but there's a few 'common sense' things that occur to me right off the bat: ... 1, RFID/embedded transmitters. these are present in most things retail, cheap enough to make, good range and light as a feather. that should've been scanned and confirmed TWICE! (by the label serial and the RFID strip) 2, the overall weight of the item. games in full are: user manual, game disk(s) outer label sleeve and game case itself. subtract the first two and that's going to be VERY lightweight on exit. 3, always check physically the item before anything absolute. (if you rented online, then dunno what to say, sorry! i never do risky things like that) [edit] typo.
#2- This is a Redbox rental, all you get is the disc in the smallest possible case made for discs... But there would still be a weight difference, just not that much. And at that point, you just put the label on a blank CD-R or something, problem solved. RFID's could work, you'd just have to make sure the disc stays balanced... You don't want a chip on just one side of the disc.
I mean if you report it, they know who the last guy is who rented it. So it's an easy crime to solve you would think?
@ Psycho. not if the strip was INSIDE the case (as is usually) and if the 'shop-ship' is run tight, the barcode on the visible side would also be scanned. case gets opened and by proxy, checked by eye also. :wink-new: should've clarified that. i don't endorse the like on the disks themselves, such thing are destructive to the drive bore (offset/off balance) not least the media...:concern:
Redbox kiosks are completely people free. It's like renting games (and DVD's) out of a vending machine. No eyes look at the discs, it uses only barcodes (seen on the inner ring of the disc) to verify if the disc is there or not, and, as people quickly realized, a photocopy of a barcode will scan just as well as a barcode. There's also no way to verify if what you are getting is legit before you pay for it If Redbox had to pay employees, it would become too expensive to rent this stuff, I think.
My co-worker and I found this hilarious. They obviously need to beef up their theft protection. I'm sure this happens a lot/all over. Surprised we haven't seen another case of this sooner. Also a blank CDR wouldn't work because what Redbox scans are those QR-type things in the middle. The machine didn't know the difference, so it scanned in correctly. It doesn't discriminate beyond that point I believe. You should find some way to play Blood Dragon, though. Awesome game, very tounge-in-cheek and self-aware.
I did, they were nice and gave me a free rental code to use. You'd think, right? Unless someone between the thief and I rented it and didn't even look at the disc. Ironically enough, one of the last games I rented from them was Thief (would have been ironically hilarious if that had been stolen) I was going to get it on Steam, but never got around to it, mainly because my laptop doesn't like new games.
Idk if you have a 360, but occasionally it goes on sale at the XBLA. Also not sure how you feel about digital downloading, but if you have Steam I assume you're cool with it. But I got mine for about $5 IIRC. Got Dark Souls for the same as well, even though I'm pretty sure that was free at one point. So upon a Google search I discovered this Redbox scam has been going on for a while. Guess I need to get out from under my rock.
Why couldn't they have a disc reader inside that would attempt to load part of the disc to see if it's the actual game/movie that it's supposed to be? I would think that wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to implement, and it would solve the "paper disc" problem.
Even a basic DVD player should at least recognize it (I know with 360 games it has a tiny DVD movie telling people to put it in a 360).
This isn't the big problem you'd think. When someone rents something and there is a "fake disc" or even one damaged beyond readability they will call and complain and it will get tracked to the previous renter who didn't complain. When they have a history of problems it's obvious what they are doing. So sure some discs will get stolen, but it's not exactly like you can just rent all the games and fake return them no problem. That is basically the same as renting something and not returning it, they have the card to charge still. The way the machine works, actually trying to read the data on the disc would probably be far too unreasonable. The code on the disc though actually has a unique disc ID though. Apparently when you rent a bad disc and call to complain, they can flag that disc so once you return it to the machine no one can rent it after you. Generally, people that try to defraud the machine will eventually get caught.
I'm not sure about how well that works. It's possible when you try to use a card that it may not accept just any card that can be charged. One thing I always wondered about was those pre-paid cards. What if someone were to buy one of those, use most of the money up on it before renting some $60 new release game with the last bit of money. They'd be unable to charge the card anymore and you could just never return it. But maybe it won't accept such cards.
Hmm, that's a good question. My thought would be the same, that its possible they wouldn't accept the card outright. Not sure what guidelines Redbox ascribes to when it comes to cards.
A quick google shows this has been going on for more than 2 years. Obviously not a major concern if they've not done anything to combat the problem.
