Irvine police department announces bust in pun-filled social media post about alleged $34,000 Lego looting
So much for using his noodle.
A California man pilfered thousands of dollars in Lego toy sets from the retailer Target in a return-based scam, sometimes swapping valuable figurines with dried pasta pieces and before returning the construction-centric toys, authorities recently alleged.
The alleged plot ended with the arrest of 28-year-old Jarrelle Augustine, accused of grand theft for allegedly stealing the Lego sets, whose manufacturer is known for the interlocking miniature bricks and figurines, according to Irvine, California, police.
“You read that correctly,” police said in a Facebook post announcing the 14 April arrest. “We are talking about durum wheat semolina pasta, and what we are calling a pasta-tively terrible plan.”
Why would be do that??? Legos are way more expensive than pasta!
Edit: I am not a smart man.
Those Legos cost a pretty penne
One cannelloni admire this pun
Oooooooh ☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️👏👏👏👏👏👏
“But why male models?”
……I just told you
lol
it’s almost almost almost friday
These plastic pieces should cost pennies but they sell for $100+ that’s crazy
The interesting thing is that both the pasta and the Legos probably cost around the same to manufacture. Lego are extremely cheap to manufacture, and are incredibly profitable.
Surely they spend more on upfront design/engineering though
Like what? Lego have been essentially unchanged for decades. They have to keep coming up with new kit ideas, but the fundamental building blocks have remained unchanged for decades, and they are simple to reproduce by the billions, and they are dirt cheap.
And yet because of colorful pieces, good package design, and excellent marketing, they can sell a box of tiny dirt cheap plastic blocks for an eye-watering price. Yeah, they have to come up with the occasional weird piece now and then, but otherwise, the bulk of the upfront engineering and design was done decades ago.
Lego is wildly profitable.
Most of the profits Lego generates go to lawyers who sue anyone making anything that has knobs on it.
They don’t want you to know that Lego lost that patent years ago and everyone can do the knobs now. They still hold patents on mini figs and their new smart brick though.
I heard about the LEGO drama recently (some big promoter went off about quality control and started recommending the other brands) so I checked em out. Pretty cool stuff!
The selection isn’t great (a lot of cars) and the mini figs are horrifying but overall, LEGO might be in trouble.
LEGO used to be about creativity, you had a huge bin of various blocks and made something to play with. Iterative prototyping.
Now it’s about following instructions to make one thing, closer to model kits. but my bin of blocks went through multiple generations of cousins, kids.
Hmm I’m not sure I totally agree. My nephews play with them the same way I did, intermingling sets with bucket bricks. And LEGO’s first sets came out just a few years after the bricks.
But I don’t totally disagree either because they’ve expanded their market to adults who want to use the completed sets as decoration and it seems to have made everything worse.
I’m guilty of it. I love the plant collection and have a few mixed in with my actual plants
Target, of all retailers, has an incredibly advanced forensics lab that helps the US FBI solve crimes. Basic electronic fraud was doomed to fail.
Bruh
You’d have to use a card you have access to even get a refund, which means you’d either just hand all the info they ever need to charge you, or you commit credit card fraud and use someone else’s, which is probably even worse.
Does target no longer accept cash?
Yknow I completely forgot about cash because all the stores push card payment. I don’t know if you get offered cash back on refund anymore though. Usually these places only offer store credit unless they’re legally obligated to.
You get cash back if you paid with cash. Gift cards would probably also work for a scam like this.
Dude screwed up a lot of people’s birthdays or whatever.
What if I really need some elbow pieces?
As someone who worked in retail 10+ years ago, this is not new.
Insane that pasta is worth more than Lego now
I think you need to reread the post. The pasta is very clearly the lesser of the two by value.
It’s a joke.
Let me explain: with the current economy, food prices have increased significantly. So the joke is that pasta would be more expensive than expensive Lego.
