Someone figured out how to hack OnePlus 2’s waiting list and explains how he did it
The only thing worse than waiting in a long line to buy something is for someone to jump said line. Nobody likes a line cutter. But we’re almost inclined to give this one guy a pass because not only did he admit to doing it, he’s showing others how he did it.
The line we’re talking about is OnePlus’ special OnePlus 2 reservation list. It’s the company’s special waiting list that has people signing up in hopes that OnePlus has a few extra scraps invites to throw their way should the time come. Of course nothing is guaranteed. The game is that you can get ahead in the line by simply whoring out affiliate links which is exactly how one man was able to “hack” it. It’s a bit technical, but he posted the entire process onto Medium which essentially involved using a script to create thousands of fake email accounts to sign up using his affiliate link. It was so effective he was able to jump from 70,000 position to 1,694 in about 20 minutes.
So why did he do it? Well, first off he actually wants to buy the phone and second, he was upset that, despite being one of the first to sign up, he lost his original spot of 9,000 and got pushed all the way down to 70,000 thanks to others pushing their way ahead using referral links. Because he’s a good sport, he actually notified OnePlus of the “hack” and has even offered to take down his blog post at their request.
[Medium]