When you go to a fast food joint, you're not asking for much: a fast,
filling meal at a decent price. But sometimes you don't even get that.
Here's a look at some times that fast food restaurants cheated customers.
Burger King ended 2017 by settling a class action lawsuit claiming Maryland customers had
been cheated for almost two years. The lawsuit was filed by Koleta Anderson of Maryland, who claimed
customers who used a Buy One, Get One coupon for BK's Croissan'wich were paying an inflated
price. Anderson says when she used the coupon, she was charged $3.19 for a single sandwich.
Without the coupon, she was charged $2.16 for the same sandwich. And this wasn't a one time thing:
she claimed that Burger King was intentionally hiking prices for people with the coupon,
as she and her lawyer were similarly overcharged at several other locations
BK denied there was any funny business going on...but they still settled the matter and
agreed to hand out some $2 and $5 gift cards.
The whole point of ordering an Extra Value Meal
is that it's convenient and it's cheaper than ordering the components individually.
But a lawsuit filed in Illinois in 2016 alleged that's not always the case.
According to the Cook County Record, James Gertie filed the complaint when he realized he was paying
more for his Extra Value Meal than the components would cost individually. The meal was $5.90, he
said, while ordering two cheeseburgers, a medium fries, and a medium soft drink came to $5.49.
Gertie told the Daily Herald it wasn't the money that prompted the lawsuit.
"It's because of the principle, that's the whole
point of a 'value' meal. I believe in the principle of true advertising. If
a company advertises something to be a value, then it should be."
Chipotle's big bragging point is fresh ingredients, as well
as their claim that they're a healthier dining choice than their competitors.
But a class action lawsuit filed in California challenges those claims,
alleging that Chipotle was tricking customers with incomplete information.
The confusion came when diners looked at a menu board that showed a picture of the
chorizo burrito, a summary of ingredients, and a note that claimed simply, "300 calories." Fortune
reported that Chipotle's nutrition calculator actually gives you a total of 930 calories for
just a chorizo burrito with white rice and black beans. Turns out, the 300 calories
on the menu was just for the chorizo alone, with no other ingredients or fillings added.
And that's a problem for Chipotle, as California law requires restaurants to make complete
nutritional information available to customers. Dunkin' Donuts' imposter ingredients
"Yeah I come to Dunkin everyday. Grab a 'crolla,
have an extra lodge, three Parliaments, take a big dump - that's the routine."
Well, okay, not everyone. In
fact, in 2017, the Dunks was hit with three different lawsuits alleging
bogus replacement ingredients. In April, a Massachusetts customer got a settlement out of
a lawsuit filed against the coffee and donut chain claiming customers at a group of 20 locations were
being served margarine or butter substitute, even if they asked for butter. Then, in June, a lawsuit
in New York accused the company of using ground beef instead of steak in their steak-and-egg
sandwiches. And in August, another class action lawsuit was filed claiming products labeled as
"blueberry" didn't contain any actual blueberries, and instead used sugary "flavored crystals."
In 2014, a disgruntled customer sued Jimmy Johns because she didn't get alfalfa sprouts — even
though they were clearly listed on the menu. It turns out there was a pretty good reason:
in 2012, there was an E. Coli outbreak traced to sprouts served at Jimmy Johns,
among other places. Jimmy Johns responded by removing the item entirely from their meals, but
didn't alter their menus to reflect the change.
Jimmy Johns denied any wrongdoing in the case of
the missing alfalfa sprouts, but still settled and agreed to give unhappy customers a voucher
for $1.40 that could be redeemed for any side item or soft drink… but not a side of sprouts.
If you think you've been shortchanged on your McDonald's French fry order,
there might be a good reason for that, according to McDonald's employees who posted on Reddit.
"They say they would told to pinch the base of the
cardboard carton so it would take fewer fries to make it look full."
Other employees confirmed the practice — and that customers occasionally called
them out on it — but a McDonald's representative told the Huffington
Post no such policy exists. We'll let our stomachs be the judge of that.
In 2013, a customer at a Subway in Australia posted a photo of his footlong sub next to a
tape measure that showed it was only 11 inches long. The internet was not about
to stand for that sort of thing, and a group filed a class action lawsuit against Subway.
It turned out that the case of the disappearing inch was a result of how the bread baked,
and since all loaves start from the same amount of dough, you're guaranteed to get a particular
amount of bread. In spite of that, the case was settled for $525,000 and that should have
ended it. One sub-loving plaintiff refused to settle, however, and kept the case going.
It wasn't until August 2017 that the entire case was thrown out because...the judged deemed
it to be really stupid. So, while you might not be getting exactly 12 inches of bread,
the courts say you're still getting your money's worth.
If you have a sneaking suspicion that your Big Mac isn't as big as it used to be, you're not the only
one. Disgruntled customers on Reddit have posted pictures of McDonald's hamburgers on buns twice as
big as the burgers and even entire sandwiches they could measure using the length of their thumb.
When McDonald's in Australia was confronted with customer accusations that burgers there
were getting smaller, the company swore the meat patties have remained the same size and weight
over the years. However, McDonald's did admit in 2020 that it changed the buns, so you may have
noticed them looking different now even if they allegedly weigh the same amount they always have.
"Where's the beef?"
"Some hamburger places give you a lot less beef on a lot of bun."
Some customers think it's our point of view that's changed,
since every other fast food restaurant is supersizing its burgers — though not
everyone agrees. A former Mickey D's employee posted on Quora claiming that the Big Mac
originally came with two quarter-pound pieces of meat rather than two 1/10th-pound patties.
So according to this employee, you're actually getting only a fifth of a pound
of meat in your Big Mac today in comparison to half a pound of meat in the early '70s.
During the 2020 coin shortage, Chipotle found itself in legal trouble when it decided to
simply round up to the next dollar rather than give back exact change to cash customers. All
that extra change ultimately added up to many thousands of dollars in profits for the chain.
With customers losing mere pennies, Chipotle didn't think anyone would take the company
to court. However, 10 cents here and 88 cents there multiplied exponentially,
inspiring a class action lawsuit in Pennsylvania. With so many people out of jobs during the early
days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the prosecuting attorney was concerned that this practice was
negatively affecting those who only had cash and couldn't afford to let Chipotle keep the change.
This wasn't the first time the company was accused of rounding. In 2012,
The Star-Ledger in New Jersey investigated an incident where Chipotle's cash registers
were programmed to round totals up or down to save time in line. After being exposed,
the chain started only rounding down or to the nearest nickel so
that customers wouldn't hold up the line by searching for pennies to pay exact change.
Those of us who have been eating at Taco Bell for decades can confirm that the
beef doesn't taste anything like it once did. Somewhere along the way, Taco Bell's
"seasoned beef" acquired extra ingredients and gained mystery meat status. However,
it wasn't until 2011 that customers became involved in a class action lawsuit accusing
the chain of using meat that didn't meet the USDA's definition of "beef." There comes a point
where a company will add so many seasonings and fillers to its meat that it can no longer
be considered beef. And customers thought that was what had happened with Taco Bell.
"What about the taco meat stuff?"
It turns out that when the popular chain adds seasoned beef to your taco or burrito,
it's adding a mixture of ingredients that starts out as 100% real beef. However,
Taco Bell revealed that only 88% of the final mixture is beef,
with 12% other ingredients like oats, onion powder, and cocoa powder that are part of its
secret spice and seasoning mixture. So, yes, the seasoned beef starts out with real beef,
but other ingredients provide flavor and allow the restaurant to stretch its beef a bit further.