George and Mike are angry with the recent increases in prices for consumer items. Mike is particularly good with computers, and he proposes a plan to "stick it to the man" by making and printing labels from his computer that are UPC bar codes that are used by retail stores to scan purchases at checkout. Mike will print these stickers, and George will go to the stores, place them over the real bar codes on the retail boxes, then receive huge discounts on the items at checkout. They will then place the items up on eBay an on-line auction site, to convert the goods to cash they will share.

George and Mike carry out this scheme over a period of years, and generate huge sums by selling the goods for approximate retail prices on eBay, but paying far less in the stores. They do not report these sums on their tax returns.