The Shocking Ways Hackers Almost Got Free Starbucks, Uber Eats, and Steam

Picture this: someone buys a $100 Starbucks gift card but pays just a few cents. Another person turns a referral code into a $2,000 buffet. And a gamer quietly adds huge amounts of money to their Steam wallet by changing an email address. It sounds like movie magic — or a prank gone wild — but these were real problems discovered in big, trusted companies. Here’s the story, told plainly.

The Starbucks Glitch: $100 Coffee for a Penny

A security researcher in Singapore noticed something strange: when you buy a gift card online, your browser sends a hidden message to Starbucks saying how much you’re paying. The researcher caught that hidden message and changed the price from $100 to $0.10. The payment went through for the tiny amount, but Starbucks still generated a valid $100 gift card.

Imagine automating that and buying thousands of gift cards for pocket change. Scary, right? Thankfully, the researcher reported the problem responsibly, Starbucks fixed it, and the company avoided what could have been a massive loss.

The Uber Eats Trick: Turning Referrals into a Buffet

This one wasn’t about breaking code — it was about gaming a system. Uber Eats offered $10 credits for referrals. A clever researcher realized he could push his referral code to the top of a popular coupon website by creating fake votes and accounts. Every time someone used the coupon they thought was a normal discount, he got the $10 referral credit. Over time he collected more than $2,000 in credits and used them for free orders.

This exploit shows how a program that looks fine on paper can be abused in the real world if it relies on outside websites or unverified signals.

The Steam Hack: Fake Payments, Real Credits

A gamer discovered a way to trick Steam’s payment flow by cleverly changing an email and tweaking the payment details sent between systems. The result: his bank charged a small amount, but Steam was told a much larger sum had been paid — so he received the larger credit in his Steam wallet. Valve (Steam’s owner) fixed it quickly after the issue was reported and rewarded the finder — but if it had been used maliciously, it could have been catastrophic.

What These Stories Teach Us

Though the attacks were different, the lesson is the same: systems can be vulnerable in unexpected ways.

Don’t trust information coming from the user’s device without re-checking it on your servers.

Watch how your features interact with outside sites and third-party services.

Consider bug bounty programs — paying ethical researchers to test your defenses is much cheaper than cleaning up a huge exploit.

A Simple Thought to Take Away

Every “Buy” or “Apply” button on a website hides a lot of invisible work. When that hidden work isn’t double-checked, simple mistakes can turn into major losses. That’s why security needs to be part of the design, not an afterthought.

If you liked these real-world tech mysteries and want more stories like this — explained simply — let me know. I’ll share more surprising cases and what companies learned from them. Stay curious, and stay safe online.

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