French teen jailed after checking out a PS4 as a fruit… twice

Don’t worry, you read the title right. A 19-year old French teen by the name of Adel was jailed for trying to check out a PlayStation 4 as fruit at a supermarket in Montbeliard, France (thanks, L’Est Republicain). Thing is, he might have gotten away with it, too, had he not try the exact same stunt the following day.

What Adel did was simple. After picking a PS4 off the electronics shelf, the teen brought the 340 Euros (~S$520) console to a produce weighing machine in the supermarket — these usually dispense a printed price tag for fruits and vegetables based on their weight. He then scanned this illegitimate price tag at a self-checkout counter, paying only 10 Euros (~S$14) for the PS4.

Any rational person would have been satisfied after pulling a stunt like that, right? Well, not Adel. After selling the first console to pay for a return ticket to his hometown of Nice, he went back and tried to do it again the next day.

There’s an old adage that goes: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The supermarket staff weren’t going to let Adel humiliate them again, and they collared him before he could escape. Afterwards, the teen was handed over to the police, charged with theft, and sentenced to four months in prison. So much for that return trip. Since we’re talking about adages, hopefully Adel learns the meaning of “once bitten, twice shy” while he’s in there!