If you started with 12 and worked down to 10

while ($row = <$fh>) {
my $pos1 = 12;
    $row =~ s/(\|)/!--$pos1 ? ' pipe ' : $1/ge;
my $pos2 = 11;
    $row =~ s/(\|)/!--$pos2 ? ' pipe ' : $1/ge;
my $pos3 = 10;
    $row =~ s/(\|)/!--$pos3 ? ' pipe ' : $1/ge;
    chomp $row;
    print OUT "$row\n";
    }
[download]

it should work.