

Purchasing a £30,000 numberplate for the price of a bus ticket - orf
http://tomforb.es/purchasing-a-%C2%A330-000-numberplate-for-the-price-of-a-bus-ticket

======
boingy
I've seen this on quite a few websites that use paypal. If you have ever come
across a site that has a 'You are now being redirected to Paypal, please wait'
page inbetween the checkout and paypal then you will probably see something
similar if you quickly hit ctrl+S.

It doesn't help that Paypal themselves ([https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-
bin/?cmd=_render-content&conte...](https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-
bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_formbasics)) have
tutorials with lines like: <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="15.00">

~~~
TomGullen
Some sites that use Paypal also have a form field for where to direct to upon
successful purchase. Sometimes this page has a link to download the product
you're meant to be purchasing.

------
kordless
The fact the hidden fields can be populated on a POST doesn't necessarily
imply they are used on the backend. There's a plate ID field in there...which
may or may not indicate there is a record for this transaction in a database.

~~~
mortice
The fact that the author was able to manipulate values 2 pages after the form
he modified pretty strongly implies that those values were used on the
backend, however.

------
biot
And once you're in prison for fraud, you can even make a small wage from
manufacturing license plates. Win-win!

------
pbreit
This is how PayPal has worked for over 10 years. It's not that big of a deal.
Tampering with the form fields is discouraged both by law and by the ease of
confirming either programmatically or manually.

------
BoppreH
Their Acrylic plate upsell is using a pretty dark pattern.

It's labeled "Uncheck this box if you __DO NOT __require a set of Acrylic
Number Plates " and comes pre-checked.

~~~
elemeno
It's not really a dark pattern when the Acrylic plate is the product that most
people are trying to buy - without it you don't have the physical numberplate
you can put on your car.

~~~
corin_
Plus they make it pretty clear what the tickbox is, on top of the fact that an
upsell of £20 for a physically made product on top of £30k for a license is
the least useful upsell in the history of selling.

------
sarreph
If the transaction went through and they _unknowingly_ delivered the number-
plate, would this be illegal? Or would it have to be resolved as a civil
matter? [in the UK]

~~~
orf
I'm almost certain this would be illegal, as well as a breach of the computer
misuse act. I've been wondering this myself though - it would have been cool
to stick that plate on my car.

~~~
sarreph
Shame, then. My thoughts exactly!

------
jdmitch
I think you'll find bus tickets have gone up to £2.40 in London now ;)

~~~
chm
How much is a monthly pass for the tube + bus?

~~~
sarreph
I'm an undergraduate, and a student oyster monthly pass is just shy of £90 —
It's more like £120 for an 'Adult'.

Pretty ridiculous that they don't subsidise essential things like these more,
for students, as the cost of living here is already so stupidly high.

~~~
cperciva
_Pretty ridiculous that they don 't subsidise essential things like these
more, for students, as the cost of living here is already so stupidly high._

Maybe they'd prefer to have students living somewhere else?

~~~
orf
Why would they want that?

~~~
rayhano
Because higher education is over subsidised and under performing. It's nice to
get so much loan and grant money for a few years of dossing.

~~~
coherentpony
>It's nice to get so much loan and grant money for a few years of dossing.

Blanket statements like this make my blood boil. I worked incredibly hard for
my education. And, when I did it I thought it was expensive. Since I graduated
the UK government tripled tuition twice in four years. To be precise, the UK
government _allowed_ universities to triple tuition twice in four years. And
believe me, most if not all of the universities in the Russell Group did
indeed triple their tuition fees. The students that get the student loan help
from the government now may be potentially facing a lifetime of debt, unable
to pay off their loans before they retire. "Great," I hear you say, "When you
retire, your student loan is written off." While at first glance this may seem
appealing, it's bad for the economy. The UK government made a move that works
well for them in the short-term but works out extremely poorly in the long-
term. And this is not accounting for the fact that the average student
graduating nowadays with about 9 times more debt. I don't know which country
you are from or where you were educated, but in the UK where there are almost
no scholarships for higher education, graduating with £30,000 of debt must
feel pretty debilitating.

Oh, and by the way, there is no 'grant' money for students. Grants where for
the education of yesteryear, when students didn't have to pay back the help
they received from the government. It's depressing to think that the mere
accident of the year of one's birth provides an entire lifetime of debt.

~~~
rayhano
Then you're over-thinking it.

The 'fees' are differed on the off-chance you don't earn a reasonable salary.
You can call it debt, but it isn't. In the US they have real student debt that
is debilitating. In the UK, it doesn't even register on your credit score.

Why is it that a school-leaver gets little to no help, and a university
student gets a whole tonne of grants and deferred fees? Doesn't that
inequality make your blood boil?

Details on UK higher education grants and deferred fee payments here:
[http://www.slc.co.uk/services/higher-education/grants-for-
li...](http://www.slc.co.uk/services/higher-education/grants-for-living-
costs.aspx#)

And don't be melodramatic. It's not a lifetime of debt because there is a time
limit and then the deferred fees are written off.

------
hbbio
In other news, you could purchase a $200k Banksy for $60:
[http://www.banksy.co.uk/2013/10/13/central-
park](http://www.banksy.co.uk/2013/10/13/central-park)

And you could have gone up to the end of the buying process...

------
umsm
These types of errors / issues / design choices are more common than you
think. You'd be very surprised, but you can even see it on major sites.

