In what is either a mistake that will probably result in angry customers and canceled orders or a deliberate effort to rid its warehouses of towels and washcloths, JCPenney issued a coupon code earlier today for $10 off purchases of $10 or more.

Since you understand basic math, you can see right away that this is a prime opportunity to find small purchases adding up to $10 and then getting those things for zero dollars.

And that’s exactly what plenty of other clever folks on the Internet did this morning, as numerous sites posted the coupon code (and an accompanying serial number), along with links and instructions on where to pick up $6 towels and $4 washcloths.

Since there were apparently no limits sent on the use of the code, customers could just keep using it over and over again, depleting the inventory on the JCP website.

As of right now, every single color of washcloth and towel — from “Always Voilet [sic]” to “Tangerine Tango” — is back-ordered.

“What we have in the end is another case of a retailer forgetting or being ignorant of how the Internet works,” writes Consumerist reader Victor. “People share coupons. Smart companies use that to their advantage with single use codes and/or codes with referrals. Not-so-smart companies do what JCPenney just did. That’s not a good sign for the new management’s ultimate success.”

We’ve written to JCP to find out if this is a mistake and if the company intends on honoring these orders. Will update if we get a response.

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