Oh, I am series. If Wendy's had just slipped this woman a few bucks within the first couple of days, all of this would have quietly gone away. Instead they stood on principle, and it would up costing them years worth of building in market share.
If I were running a chain of fast food franchises, there would be $1,000 in cash in an alarmed lockbox with one of those "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS" covers. Instruct the manager that when somebody comes up with something stupid like this, use the money in the box to buy the offending food item back, and then deny everything. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper than all the bad publicity.