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No More Free Subway Subs, And You Can Blame Technology
from the the-jared-diet-just-got-a-lot-more-expensive dept
Cheap, high-quality scanners and color printers have been blamed for increasing the counterfeiting of fake currency, though there's not much evidence to support the allegation. But counterfeiting made possible by these products has claimed one scalp: low-tech rewards programs, like Subway's Sub Club stamps or the punch cards used by businesses all over to reward frequent customers. Apparently people were selling fake Sub Club stamps on eBay and making copies of the punch or stamp cards used by other companies. Subway and others are moving to electronic systems -- which are expensive to implement, but companies say the cost is lower than what they lose to fraud in the old programs. Who knew people would go to so much trouble for a 6-inch club sandwich?
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I knew it -- when they stopped taking my stamps :-(
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Yum!
> Who knew people would go to so much trouble for a 6-inch club sandwich?< br>Aaah! But what about 2000 free 6-inch club sandwiches?
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They've already implemented electronic cards here.
Where I live, they now use plastic cards with magnetic stripes to keep track. If this is implemented correctly (put only a random id number on the card strip and track everything with a locked down central server), it may put a stop to the fraud. If implemented incorrectly (put the number of subs already purchased on the strip), it will only temporarily delay it until these people start buying/stealing/building magnetic stripe encoders/readers.
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What gets me is that the Sub Club has been shut down for more than a year at least (because of the fraud), I don't see how this is suddenly new.
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