We’ve shared with you before first-hand accounts of what happens when you’re the victim of a Redbox scammer. These are people who copy a barcode and illicitly return a game or movie’s case without the disc inside, leaving the next person to check it out sad and disappointed, holding only a piece of paper.

We ran a post on the subject, with photos, last year. If this happens to you, don’t fret. Redbox will not leave you holding the bag. Well, the empty case. The scam recently turned up in the suburbs of Chicago, and scared Redbox customers who were afraid they’d be charged for the game. Games are more expensive than DVDs, after all, and you can get a lot more entertainment out of a copy of “Call of Duty” than a copy of “Peeples.”

A Redbox spokesman told a paper in the region where the scam has popped back up that people faking barcodes to steal games isn’t a very widespread problem, or they wouldn’t be making any money. “If the problem was widespread, it wouldn’t be a profitable business for us,” he pointed out. The company is looking for ways to fight this particular fraud, but isn’t sharing what those methods might be with the general public.

Redbox scammers hit Lake County [Lake County News-Sun] (via CBS Chicago)

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