When you’re young, you are still trying to figure out the world. That’s quite normal – even into your twenties.

Part of growing up – especially if you grow up in a safe, loving household – is testing the rules, pushing boundaries while trying to outsmart them, and learning limits when it comes to behavior. It might feel a little tough on your parents at the time, but it’s an important part of growing up, and a firm but fair approach from loving parents will teach you exactly which rules you are safe to break in adulthood, and how breaking serious rules could lead you toward serious trouble.

When you’re an adult who has grown up in this way, you’ll have a good awareness of which rules can be broken – as well as which risks you’re willing to take. Checking out of a hotel one or two minutes late might land you a fine – but you also know that most hotels are quite reasonable when it comes to just a handful of seconds. You know not to break the actual law, but you also know that probably no one will notice at work if you occasionally help yourself to an extra cookie. And if they do, so long as it’s just one every now and then, probably no one will notice or care.

But when the teenage couple in this story try a cunning plot to get two free drinks from a chain coffee house, they’re still young enough to not realize quite how obvious they’re being. And when they get caught, their youth is apparent in their reaction, and the lesson they’ll likely learn.

Read on to find out what happened here.

You actually thought that trick would work?

I work in a coffee/donut shop. Once a year, we have a rather popular contest, where coffee cups have tabs that might get you a car, five grand Visa gift cards, or gift cards to our shops.

Most of the time, you will win a free coffee or donut, which suits our customer base fine.

Now, one day, a teenage couple comes in. Somehow, not sure why, but I knew they were going to pull something.

They didn’t come up to order together, the girl comes up first.

Let’s see what happened next.

She hands me a winning tab, and orders the most expensive drink on the menu.

Honestly, I don’t care, the drink is easy to make, and I would do the same thing. Besides, the drink is allowable by contest rules.

While waiting for the machine to fill the cup, I glance at the tab. It’s torn in half, only showing the English part of the bilingual tab. Not that big a deal, the tabs are annoying to rip off the cup.

But, coffee sense is still tingling, so I don’t put it in the container, and just set it aside.

Given what happened next, he was right to be suspicious.

I hand her her cup, wish her a nice day, and she almost leaves, loitering around the door, as her boyfriend comes up to the counter.

What a surprise! He also wants the same size and type of drink. He also has half a winning tab! But Sacre Bleu! It’s all in French!

This is a moment I have only dreamt of. I smile, grab the previous tab, and place both together in front of him, slowly, as if I’m a CSI scientist.

I don’t say anything to him, just smiling, and he bolts out, dragging his girlfriend with him. Which is a shame, I was about to offer him a smaller (non contest) cup and lid so they could both share.

Sometimes, especially when you’re a poor student, it pays to make crafty plans to save money.

And this was a smart plan – except it was very poorly executed.

Worth a try, but they couldn’t be too disappointed when it didn’t work.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cashier who gave her phone number to be friendly to a guest, but immediately wished she could take it back.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit said about this.

This person thought that the couple needed to work a little harder on their schemes.

While others shared stories of customers trying to exploit promotions.

Meanwhile, this Redditor had a decent success rate with the same coffee contest.

The real truth is that if the couple had staggered their trips to the coffee shop a little better – or even not just come in together – they would’ve likely got away with their cunning plan. But by hanging around and looking a little nervous and suspicious, they immediately drew the barista’s attention to them, meaning that their plot was quite obvious, given the torn token.

But if one of the couple had gone to another store, or even just waited five or ten minutes, they would’ve both had a free coffee. It’s not the best lesson, since they weren’t acting with much integrity, but hey, they’re young – they have a lot of lessons still to learn in life. Clearly.

For the barista though, actually trusting his gut feeling showed just how powerful and accurate it was. He could’ve shrugged off his suspicions and carried on, but the fact that he didn’t meant that he was able to outsmart the couple – not that it was too difficult. After all, they made it mightily obvious.