# Possibly the most WTF-worthy news headline I've ever read. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 23, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874 "2012-05-23T20:27:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/21 "2012-05-23T23:17:55Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Well, to be fair the article’s headline called him “incredibly wealthy”. I don’t know if they had any other data besides the price of his house, or if they were just being sensationalist. I’d like to retract my previous statement, please. The dude apparently some cash. It wasn’t much trouble to find his address on the internet, and looking at google’s satellite photos, he lives in a really \*\*big \*\*house on a (for the SF bay area) \*\*enormous \*\*plot of land. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/22 "2012-05-23T23:19:29Z")
wait… if he _swapped_ bar codes, doesn’t that mean the Lego set ended up being $13.99, and the My Little Pony Playset was suddenly $64.99? Did any Bronies pay the Overly Expensive Price? ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/23 "2012-05-23T23:19:36Z")
Sorry, missed the edit window… but wanted to add that the ebay sales were to cover his actual cost of buying the legos. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/24 "2012-05-23T23:22:22Z")
> [@digs](#): > > wait… if he _swapped_ bar codes, doesn’t that mean the Lego set ended up being $13.99, and the My Little Pony Playset was suddenly $64.99? > > Did any Bronies pay the Overly Expensive Price? No, he put a fake barcode sticker over the actual barcode on the package. My Little Pony is perfectly safe at her $59.95(?) price point. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/25 "2012-05-23T23:23:58Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > I’d like to retract my previous statement, please. > The dude apparently some cash. It wasn’t much trouble to find his address on the internet, and looking at google’s satellite photos, he lives in a really \*\*big \*\*house on a (for the SF bay area) \*\*enormous \*\*plot of land. Yeah… as a VP for SAP in SF? I"m guesing that he was well into the six figure income range. Not exactly like he had to debate between mac-n-cheese or hot dogs six nights a week. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/26 "2012-05-23T23:28:58Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > a (for the SF bay area) \*\*enormous \*\*plot of land. Translated… he has at least 20’ of grass on at least two sides of the house 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/27 "2012-05-24T00:09:28Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > I’d like to retract my previous statement, please. > The dude apparently some cash. It wasn’t much trouble to find his address on the internet, and looking at google’s satellite photos, he lives in a really \*\*big \*\*house on a (for the SF bay area) \*\*enormous \*\*plot of land. Of course because you said this I had to check it out too, and yeah - that’s a freakin’ palace. I _really_ doubt he picked up the Lego heisting habit to pay the mortgage on _that_. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/28 "2012-05-24T00:13:21Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > SAP accountants might do well to recheck the books and verify that his less-than-legal activities were strictly extracurricular in nature. If the accounting software they use internally is anything like the crap they foisted off on the company I work for, they’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/29 "2012-05-24T00:14:51Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > The Associated Press story says that his house was filled with hundreds of Lego sets he had assembled. Don’t junkies sometimes sell a portion of the drugs they acquire? I think this lends more weight to my Rosebud theory. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/30 "2012-05-24T00:18:58Z")
Maybe he lost all of his money on the FaceBook [del]scam[/del] IPO. But seriously, maybe he’s broke and was selling this stuff on eBay to pay the mortgage. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/31 "2012-05-24T00:30:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I expect that he got to be a multimillionaire in the first place by being obsessively greedy and willing to cut corners and break the law whenever he thought he could get away with it, and this is just the time when he’s been caught and couldn’t sweep it under the rug. My response is something like this, though more along the lines of "There’s a reason he’s well off; I’m betting this is part of that reason 😃 " ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/32 "2012-05-24T00:31:09Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > If the accounting software they use internally is anything like the crap they foisted off on the company I work for, they’ll never know. Still using Peachtree, huh? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/33 "2012-05-24T01:08:59Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > A $2 million dollar home sounds expensive, but probably not in the area where he lives. and > [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Depending on when he bought it, a 2mil house in San Carlos could be a nice 4-bedroom, 3-bath and 2 car garage house in an ordinary subdivision. I know you’ve retracted, but even if his $2 million house was, in fact, relatively modest in size and scale, i’m not sure why that is actually relevant in a discussion of his crime. If one person buys a $2 million house in a cheap area, and thus gets a large mansion for the money, and another person chooses to spend his $2 million on a two-bedroom apartment in New York, does the relative size and grandeur of the living space have some relevance to how we should feel about them if they commit a crime? If you have $2 million to spend on a house, then that’s $2 million dollars, whether or not it happens to be typical for the area where you’ve chosen to live. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/34 "2012-05-24T01:14:20Z")
I’d have to say [this](http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2011/02/12/212161_ntnews.html) is the most WTF-worthy news headline _I’ve_ ever read. The lego thing is positively mundane comparatively speaking 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/35 "2012-05-24T01:20:41Z")
> [@Sierra\_Indigo](#): > > I’d have to say [this](http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2011/02/12/212161_ntnews.html) is the most WTF-worthy news headline _I’ve_ ever read. > > The lego thing is positively mundane comparatively speaking 🙂 > [@](#): > > Flying dong dings bucks party goer :p:p ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/36 "2012-05-24T01:31:58Z")
> [@Sierra\_Indigo](#): > > I’d have to say [this](http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2011/02/12/212161_ntnews.html) is the most WTF-worthy news headline _I’ve_ ever read. > > The lego thing is positively mundane comparatively speaking 🙂 Yeah, but it’s the Northern Territory, so it doesn’t really count. It must be a slow day up there if the _NT News_ doesn’t have a crocodile story on the front page. For the non-antipodeans on the board, “bucks party” is the Aussie term for a bachelor party. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/37 "2012-05-24T02:25:22Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > Hmmm… I think I’m going to go price bar code printers this weekend. And the irony is that if you already owned one, you wouldn’t have to worry about the price. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/38 "2012-05-24T03:05:51Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > SAP accountants might do well to recheck the books and verify that his less-than-legal activities were strictly extracurricular in nature. They tried, but unfortunately all their accounting runs on SAP. ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/39 "2012-05-24T03:40:31Z")
> [@](#): > > sold 2,100 items in just over a year on eBay, and made $30,000. That’s nothing. Maybe three months probation. Now if he had stolen a purse with $80 in it, that would be a year in jail. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874/40 "2012-05-24T04:34:37Z")
I buy wholesale closeouts and re-sell the items on eBay as a hobby. One thing that seems not to be part of the discussion here is that it’s a fuckload of busywork to list, sell, box and ship over 2000 items in a year and deal with all the miscellaneous bullshit that comes from selling and dealing with buyers. Beyond that it’s big time sink. He’s got to be making 200K-400K annually, he would probably make more in a month that his entire ebay profit for the year. I doubt this was money driven. Even if the items were free to him he would still make more money per hour at his VP job. > [@](#): > > Langenbach, a top executive with global software company SAP, is facing four felony counts of burglary after replacing the existing barcodes on Lego sets with new ones that would allow him to purchase the building blocks at a huge discount. According to Liz Wylie, a spokesperson for the Mountain View Police, Langenbach “sold 2,100 items in just over a year on eBay, and made $30,000. The motive was clearly money. Why does he want the money? I don’t know. I can think of a million different scenarios.” Langenbach clearly was not hurting for money — he lives in a $2 million San Carlos home. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-the-most-wtf-worthy-news-headline-ive-ever-read/622874.md?page=3)