Five students in China were sentenced to prison after scamming KFC $30K of unlimited chicken.
In 2018, a college student by the name of Xu discovered a glitch in the restaurant’s app which allowed him an endless supply of free fried chicken. By switching between KFC’s app and its official Weibo account, Xu discovered he could generate an unlimited number of food vouchers.
As the story goes, Xu shared his discovery with four other friends and established a side-business reselling KFC’s chicken.
According to Newsweek, Xu cost Yum!, KFC’s parent company, more than 58,000 yuan (about $9,000) in six months. As for Xu’s friends, they each scammed the company between 8,900 and 47,000 yuan (around $1,380 and $7,290).
Caught in the Fryer
The five students were charged between 15-24 months in prison. Originally, Xu was set to face five years in prison; however, he was given leniency after turning himself in and pleading guilty this year. Xu is now set to face two years and six months in prison.
Xu’s incident became a trending topic in Chinese media. Several people debate over the crime’s punishment, believing it to be too harsh, while others considered KFC responsible for its loophole.
The court argued:
“Being fully aware of this bug, the convicted deliberately engaged in false transactions and illegally profited from them, which constituted the crime of fraud.”
nine.com.au
