Digital storefronts have been a convenient way to shop, but anything involving programming has its fair share of bugs. To iron out these problems, companies like Microsoft enlist contractors to make fake transactions and write down any errors to make sure everything is running smoothly. When one of these contractors found a glitch dealing with gift cards, however, he used it for his own massive profit.
As reported by Bloomberg, Volodymyr Kvashuk originally came to the US to attend his aunt's wedding. Once in the states, he enjoyed what luxuries he could indulge in, and stayed with a job in technology. Eventually, he was hired by Microsoft in 2016 to be part of a team to bug test the company's digital storefront by purchasing physical items with a designated fake credit card.
Kvashuk went through the motions with testing the store and writing error reports with his co-workers until he got curious and added an Xbox gift card to his cart for a test transaction. Once it was done, he found that the Microsoft Store had given him a legitimate gift card code that worked, as if it was a real purchase. Normally, this sort of fatal flaw in the system would have been reported and dealt with, but Kvashuk kept the exploit close and continued to use it.
For two years, Kvashuk would use the fault in the system to gather codes in bulk for various amounts and sell them to second-hand sellers on the cryptocurrency market for Bitcoin. He had spreadsheets and USB drives filled with Microsoft gift card codes, and was tried to be found guilty on all charges once Microsoft tracked him down. Kvashuk swears he had no idea that his scheme would get to the heights it did, saying that it couldn't have been illegal since it wasn't "real money."
The former Microsoft contractor was sentenced to nine years in prison for his smuggling, and will quite possibly get sent back to Ukraine after his sentence is served. In the end, once he was caught, he had cheated the Xbox gaming market out of roughly $10 million through gift cards via their own storefront and as their own worker.
Among the many things federal agents found when searching his $1.675 million house, was a list written in his first language of how he planned to spend his next $10 million. After causing a small surge in gift card prices, trading codes for Bitcoin, and puzzling his accountant with his funds, Kvashuk will need to keep dreaming about his extra houses in jail until 2027. Microsoft learned from this scheme as well and has since most likely patched the flaw out to avoid any other Xbox gamers getting cards for free.
Source: Bloomberg