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March 4, 2004

McDonald's Randomly Giving Away Millions

When I saw this promotion, I thought it looked a little suspicious. So I did some research. According to a McDonald's press release:

"This Giveaway is being offered pursuant to the Stipulation of Settlement approved by Judge Stephen Schiller and entered in the consumer class action lawsuit Boland, et al. vs. Simon Marketing, Inc., and McDonald's Corp., Case No. 01 CH 13803, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois."

You can download a PDF of the class action complaint here or just read this part:

  • While McDonalds delegated the responsibility of the running and management of the subject promotions to Simon, it remained responsible for the ultimate integrity of the promotions.
  • Commencing in around 1995 individuals at Simon began a plan to remove the winning game pieces form [sic] the random seeding process for the subject promotions of McDonalds.
  • Simon employees began a process, promotion after promotion, of pulling out large prize winning game pieces from random insertion into the public domain.
  • Simon employees then misdirected these winning game pieces to friends who claimed the prizes and split the winnings with the Simon employees.
  • The removal of the winning game pieces from random distribution resulted in reduced or non-existent odds to the plaintiffs of winning a substantial prize.

    Bad Simon Marketing!

    McDonald's is trying to make amends. All you broke, Gen-X hipsters might want to stop by Mickey D's this weekend for a supersize fries while you still can. Maybe you'll get a million bucks.

    Posted at 4:17 PM




    9 Comments

    i saw an ad for this last night... i, too, was wondering why it seemed so simple...

    Posted by: janelle at 03/04/04 5:06 PM | Reply
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    in NYC only, or all the way out here in seatts, too?

    Posted by: corin at 03/04/04 6:17 PM | Reply
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    good question corin:

    Over 15,140 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, Canada, Aruba, Guam, Bahamas, Curacao, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St. Croix, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Saipan, Suriname, Trinidad and U.S. Virgin Islands are participating.

    Prior to the Instant Prize Giveaway dates, a computerized random drawing will have taken place to select five (5) “winning” restaurants across the Instant Prize Giveaway territory (the U.S., Canada and elsewhere) per day for each of the three (3) days of the program. For each restaurant selected, a time of day was also randomly selected. On the days of the Instant Prize Giveaway, a team of Judges will be positioned in each of the selected restaurants. Their task will be to identify a potential winner-namely, the first customer who enters the restaurant or pulls up at the Drive-Thru (depending on restaurant type and random selection) after the randomly selected time of day.

    Posted by: stereogum at 03/04/04 6:20 PM | Reply
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    what a scam! simon marketing sucks!

    Posted by: Cameron at 03/04/04 8:34 PM | Reply
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    Yes, Simon Marketing does/did suck. Read this.

    Posted by: omit at 03/05/04 12:24 AM | Reply
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    The ad appeared on half a page in the New York Times. I went to the 3rd St. Manhattan Macdonald's on 3/6, where no one appeared to have heard of this offer. The manager was summoned and he gave me copies of the ad -- in English on one side and Spanish on the other. He didn't make it clear to me, but perhaps he did his best. Anyway --

    In fine print it says that you can find out about the rules, etc., by going to macdonalds website. I did. Searched and searched and got nowhere. Found the particulars at your page. Thanks. -- Yup. It's could be a ripoff. Odd, because the lawsuit itself came about because of a ripoff.

    Macdonalds has nothing to gain, but they MUST do this to fulfill their obligations under the lawsuit decision. Probably a team of their prize-givers will be lurking in some obscure Macdonalds in a distant suburb. What's to prevent their choosing a buddy? Enuf said.
    MJ

    Posted by: M. J. Birdsong at 03/06/04 2:22 PM | Reply
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    THE NORMAL PERSON CAN NOT POSSIBLY WIN THE RESONS ARE AS FOLLOWS: THERE IS NO GOVERNING BODY TO SAY WHO WINS. IT COULD BE A FRIEND, A DISTANT RELITIVE, OR JUST A PRETTY GIRL OR HANDSOME GUY.

    THE OTHER REASONS ARE THAT EVERY ONE KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO PICK THE STORES THAT GENERATE THE MOST MONEY FOR THERE COMPANY. ALSO THE ODDS OF WINNING IS 1: 51,840,000,000,000 . THE ODDS OF WINNING WAS GREATER WHEN SIMON WAS SCAMMING THE PUBLIC. ALMOST 200,000 STORES WILL BE IN EFFECT (if they are in the computer) WITH THE AVERAGE OF 1000 ORDERS PER STORE. I WOULDNT WAST MY TIME WITH THIS IN STEAD I WOULD SAY THAT SIMON SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR 1 MEAL PER PERSON IN ALL THE AFFECTED AREAS WHICH WOULD GENERATE BILLIONS OF DOLLERS IN DESTRUCTION OF BOTH COMPANIES!

    Posted by: dean jaques at 03/08/04 4:02 PM | Reply
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    Amazing. I would like to know if anyone actually won and if anyone won in Canada.

    Posted by: Tim Bergman at 03/09/04 8:09 AM | Reply
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