Posted on 02/03/2020 8:32:15 AM PST by lowbridge
In 1987, McDonald’s launched an ingenious sweepstakes based on the game of Monopoly. Customers would purchase sandwiches, fries, drinks, etc., that included peel-off game pieces on the packaging — potentially rewarding them with anything from a Filet-O-Fish to a new car to $1 million. People went wild for it and business spiked by 40 percent for the fast-food giant, which kept it up for years.
But it wasn’t all happy meals.
“It seemed like an opportunity for ordinary people to get ahead, but there were consequences,” said Brian Lazarte, co-director of the HBO docu-series “McMillion$,” premiering Monday, about the contest. In fact, some 50 people would be convicted for cheating.
Blame a man named “Uncle” Jerry Jacobson, who orchestrated a fraud that ran for 12 years and scammed some $24 million from the Monopoly promotion.
Jacobson was an ex-cop-turned-security guard who worked for Los Angeles-based Simon Marketing, which oversaw the contest behind the scenes. Part of his job was to deliver the high-ticket tokens — for cash prizes up to $1 million — to a factory where they were affixed to food packaging. One day, in 1989, Jacobson pocketed a prize piece for $25,000 and replaced it with a dud.
But, of course, he wasn’t eligible to cash it in himself. So he gave it to his stepbrother, Marvin Braun, and struck a deal: Braun would turn it in and they would quietly split the money. The scheme worked.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Back in the 60’s Exxon gave out scratch-off tickets to customers.
The winning tickets were slightly colored on the edge and could be picked out of a stack of tickets.
Living in a tourist town, most of the winners were gals in bikinis! Of course we told them they had to give their address and phone number to collect!
Sooner or later the greedy get caught- either in this world or the next
This is because if one desires and has material attachments, one is trapped
Put not the treasures of your heart in things of this world
Amazing that 50 fellow conspirators kept their mouths shut for so long.
They should be sentenced to eat McDonald’s food for the rest of their lives............
Sounded interesting until I read it is a six-part series. Ugh.
-PJ
Imagine all the chicanery going on behind the scenes with your state lottery.
“They should be sentenced to eat McDonald’s food for the rest of their lives............”
What BLOWS MY MIND is that some people actually STILL eat there. IDIOTS.
I cannot remember the last time I ate at a McDonald’s, years ago......................
It’s always an inside job.
One rule of robbery. If you can’t do it alone, don’t do it.
But the number one rule: Don’t do it at all. At the end of everything, even if you get away with it, the only person you’ve really hurt is yourself.
So, McD entrusted one person with the custody of the valuable game pieces and didn’t set up any controls to assure that he would not steal them. McD made it too easy for him to steal, by having only winning pieces in one place at one time.
Bad management.
How about just sending them in a sealed tamper-proof container?
My Dad told me,
“Whenever there’s big money involved, someone’s going to find a way to cheat.”
Our public treasuries have how much money in them?
Now, does everyone understand why the Democrats had to have this baloney impeachment?
I think I see the problem right there.
The lottery ball drawings have even been rigged
If all of the winning pieces are in one place then it isn’t really a random distribution is it?
I know. Here in California, there used to be some pretext of chance. They would televise the ping pong balls coming out of the cage. Nowadays, the “drawings” are electronic. So the computer that comes up with the winning numbers already know which numbers have been picked.
I have a ‘sweepstakes’ type website. We use a random number picker. Input a series of numbers and the picker (computer) picks one. 1-5000, etc. That’s how everyone does it now. My marketing guy is in charge of that since he has no clue who the numbers belong to. We also do a background check on the winner to make sure they’re not related to anyone involved in the sweepstakes in any way.
count me as one of those idiots...
I went today for lunch - Filet of Fish, small fries, small coke, lol
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.