Screwing with Moviefone

    Moviefone (MOFN) is a publicly traded company that lets you purchase
    movie tickets with your credit card via the phone or their web page.
    Known as 333-FILM in the Boston area and 777-FILM in New York it is
    avaliable in 30 major cities and serves 12,000 screens. Moviefone has
    ATM's in the lobby of all theaters it services. Each ATM has its own
    CPU, screen, printer and card reader. They come with a test card which
    when slipped in and pulled out produces a ticket that says "TEST" on
    it and nothing else. The ATM's use a LAN (Local Area Network) to
    connect to the theaters managment computers.

    Moviefone has many uses beyond simply buying tickets. One of the most
    obvious is getting ino R rated movies if you are under-aged. Buy the
    tickets via moviefone and no box office person will ID you.

    Moviefone used to accept any expiration date so you could use a
    generated credit card number, but nowadays it requires the proper
    expiration date. This can be helpful if you find a number somewhere
    but no expiration date. Simply hack it out via Moviefone by advancing
    month by month until you get the right one. If you tried something
    like this on an LDC (Long Distance Carrier) the card would be blocked
    from making calls through the carrier even with the correct expiration
    date.

    So you got a card number but no card? Moviefone ATM's require the use
    of the magnetic strip on the card via the card reader and has no
    options that allow manual input of the card number. However since the
    ATM's are on the LAN of the theaters computers, tickets for Moviefone
    can also be picked up at the box office where those terminals do allow
    manual entry of the card number. All you have to say is "I left my
    card at home but I have the number, can I still get my tickets?" One
    would think that the box office people would be suspicious, but they
    never are - it happens so often.

    This technique can be used by box office cashiers for getting extra
    cash. Before their shift in box office or while on break they order
    tickets using stolen credit card numbers. The four ticket per
    transaction limit Moviefone has installed is no good as you can call
    back using the same number to to again purchase four more tickets. The
    employee then punches up those tickets while in the box office and
    sells them pocketing the cash.

    It is safer than selling courtesy or discount tickets at full price as
    Moviefone tickets printed at the box office are identical to tickets
    purchased with cash. Anybody else could also refund the tickets for
    face value in cash. This only works if you get the tickets from the
    box office because when you get the tickets via the ATM's they are
    printed differently and cashiers are not supposed to give cash refunds
    for those. But you can still get passes.

    Using your own card it is possible to order and pick up tickets which
    you then give to your friends. Then you go back to the ATm to "try"
    and get your tickets. When they don't come out ask to speak to a
    manager or somebody who can help you. Explain how you ordered tickets
    and waited for the confirmation (most people that don't get tickets
    don't realize that they have to wait for the confirmation) but the
    machine says your order is not found. The managment will check your
    card number on their managment station which will show that you were
    charged for X amount of tickets. No Moviefone or theater computer is
    able to tell if the tickets were picked up or not. Only the time the
    theater recieved your order, number and type of tickets purchased,
    your credit card number, and the name of the movie is recorded. They
    will walk you and another group of friends in so that you can join
    your friends already in the theater.

    The managments station keeps a list of all credit card numbers used.
    During a busy weekend day you could pull up 500 or more credit card
    numbers. For instance, at sony/ loews theaters they use the Prism
    Theater Managment System. From the main menu you click on "Daily
    Operations" then click on "Credit Card Managment". The first selection
    on this screen is the one they use to see if your card has been
    billed. You enter the card number and it searches back up to three
    months (the default is 14 days) and lists the tickets you bought. The
    other or second selection on the credit card managment screen will
    give you a list of all credit card numbers and other information
    previously listed with an option to print to screen or printer. Prism
    puts 36 card numbers on each page. When going to this screen it
    sometimes says "Error" but just click OK.

    Even after you use your own card you can call Moviefone for a refund
    at 800-745-0009. Tell them you never went and picked up your tickets
    or that you want to know what this charge is as you have never used
    Moviefone in your life. (You can also call 800-745-0008 to change
    showtimes or perform other managerial tasks.)

    There are many other uses for Moviefone, like using it as a DTMF
    decoder, but this should give you a basic idea of some of the
    possibilities.