Greasy, delicious, deep-fried, cheap and easy to access, fast food definitely fills a need
in the marketplace. Most fast food chains operate with integrity. They give their customers
exactly what they ordered, for the prices listed. Others are a little shadier when it
comes to delivering on their promises. They may not do it all the time, but it has happened,
and some of the scandals triggered by dubious business conduct have been massive. So let’s
check out the top 10 fast food restaurants that straight up cheated customers.
The Burger King Croissan'wich Scandal
In May of 2017, according to the Fox News website and plenty of other media sources,
Burger King got called to the carpet for offering the public a scammy type of coupon deal for
its delectable Croissan'wiches. The deal promised two-for-one sandwiches. It promised big savings.
However, there was a problem. Burger King had jacked up the price of the coupon Croissan'wich,
so people who used the coupon were paying $3.19 for the two-for-one deal (the price
of one sandwich), rather than the regular price for one Croissan'wich, which is $2.16.
By adding a dollar and three cents to the price of the coupon Croissan'wich, Burger
King could minimize profit loss from the two-for-one deal, while also gathering goodwill from its
customers. That is, as long as nobody noticed. But somebody did notice. A resident of Upper
Marlboro, Maryland, named Koleta Anderson, spotted the scam and then took legal action.
She decided that class-action litigation was the best way to punish Burger King for cheating
her, under the guise of offering her a superb deal on fast food. She probably would never
have noticed the price-gouging if she hadn't craved a third Croissan'wich. When she ordered
the third one, on top of the two-for-one deal, she realized something was wrong. After she
spent some time mulling things over, she began doing research at other Burger Kings, to see
if the same price-gouging was happening at other locations. It was. At one other Burger
King, she paid over four bucks for the two-for-one deal, when it was possible to buy a Croissan'wich
with sausage, without the coupon, for only a single dollar. Burger King VIPs denied any
shady dealings, but still settled the lawsuit. Burger King provided customers who'd been
cheated by the Croissan'wich coupon deal with five bucks, or gift cards with values of two
dollars (special conditions applied) which could be used to get more Burger King grub.
The two-for-one promotion ran from 2015 to 2017.
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McDonald's May Be Shortchanging You on French Fries
Mickey D’s is a mammoth player in the fast food game and the burger emporium's business
practices have come under fire more than once. A significant number of people believe that
McDonald's is cheating customers by using tricks which cloak the fact that customers
just aren't getting as many French Fries as they should be. Kind of outrageous, isn't
it? You know that you want those fries, and as many of them as you can get! Apparently,
a former employee has spilled the beans online about a questionable practice known as "pinching
French Fry cartons". When they are pinched while they are being filled, they hold fewer
fries than they would if they weren’t pinched. One former McDonald's worker used Reddit to
let the world know that management shared the inside scoop on how to do the pinching
process while adding fries. The former fast-food worker said that one customer noticed what
was happening and complained. This unhappy customer put the fries in a paper bag, and
then added them to the carton again...and they only filled fifty percent of it. McDonald's
officially denies the French Fry carton pinching stuff. If you feel you're getting shortchanged
on golden, greasy, salty fries, pour them into your take-out bag, make sure that the
carton isn't pinched and then put them back in. If you notice a problem, complain.
Chili's Has Been Accused of Watering Down Their Cocktails
Do you like to enjoy frosty cocktails at Chili's, such as salty and tangy Margaritas during
Happy Hour? If so, you may not be aware that this sit-down but fairly fast restaurant has
been accused of watering down its boozy beverages! At the Trend-chaser website, a Chili's employee
accused the restaurant chain of diluting the alcohol in its drinks, for the purpose of
making more money. While this is one person's version of events, there's always the possibility
that it may be true. In the Internet Age, employees definitely expose some restaurant
industry secrets anonymously. The trick is figuring out which ones are true and which
ones aren't. It has to be said that Chili's has never been formally charged with watering
down the drinks, but another competitor of the Tex-Mex restaurant did get busted for
doing so. TGI Friday's got a whopping half-million dollar fine for doing it. The next time you
hit a family restaurant for a quick bite to eat and a cool cocktail, you may want to ask
yourself, "Is this drink as strong as what I'm used to getting"? The source for this
information about Chili's never revealed his or her name. The article was called, "Confessions
of a Chili's Employee" and it featured lots of juicy tidbits about the restaurant and
its business operations, some of which were frankly a bit gross. To be fair, there are
similar articles out there about almost every big-time fast food chain or family restaurant.
Does Chipotle Fib About Calorie Counts?
A few years ago, Chipotle was accused of deceiving its customers about the calorie count in its
food. According to the L.A. Times website, Chipotle was taken to court because it claimed
to sell a three hundred calorie burrito, which actually had way more calories than that.
The item in question sold for just over seven bucks and it was a sausage burrito. A lot
of people probably ordered it because they figured that going for a low-calorie option
was a healthy, weight-conscious decision. However, some customers who chose this Chipotle
menu option felt that the Chorizo Burrito was heavier that what they'd expect from a
three hundred calorie menu item. They became suspicious. And after doing some digging,
three guys from Los Angeles decided to sue Chipotle in 2016. The problem with the calorie
count is that it didn't include any fillings but the Chorizo sausage itself. When other
standard burrito fillings were added, the calorie count for the burrito might surge
as high as a thousand! Chris Arnold from Chipotle has stated that the calorie count was only
for the sausage. Chipotle's team of lawyers can probably work through this obstacle, but
Chipotle has had other problems too, including that whole E.coli thing you might remember.
Dunkin' Donuts Subs Real Butter for Margarine
Should Dunkin' Donuts be using real butter on its bagels, rather than margarine? One
customer thought so and he sued the company. The unhappy customer, who felt cheated out
of his genuine butter, is Jan Polanik. He's from Worcester, USA. He was mad because he
was ordering bagels at Dunkin' Donuts and getting butter substitute instead of the real
thing. He says he requested butter specifically when he ordered. Dunkin' Donuts settled, so
the guy who sued got money. He exposed the big butter substitute deception along the
way. The money wasn't too extreme. It was five hundred bucks. When Polanik felt cheated
and became a representative of the class-action lawsuit, up to fourteen hundred other people
who'd also ordered butter and gotten butter substitute were in line for settlements. The
lawsuit was against a range of franchise owners of various Dunkin' Donuts outlets. The butter
for Jan's bagel cost him 25 cents. So, what's the settlement for the other 1,400 people?
Well, they were given permission to get up to a trio of bagels, muffins or other baked
goods with butter on top, from their choice of twenty-three Dunkin' Donuts locations in Massachusetts.
Dunkin' Donuts stores involved in the lawsuit needed to refrain from serving butter substitute
for a year and then revise their menus to ensure that they were accurate.
KFC Got Sued for False Advertising
One woman who went to KFC for a big family bucket of chicken was inspired to do so because
of an ad she'd seen, that showed a bucket loaded with chicken. When KFC staff handed
her the bucket that she ordered, she said it didn't look anything like the ad. The chicken
didn't hit the top of the bucket like in the advertisement, and she doubted that she could
feed her brood with the chicken pieces inside. Disappointed and feeling duped, she decided
to sue the fast-food chain. Her suit was dismissed, but that doesn't mean that the ads we see
for fast food are always perfect representations of what we're going to get. Sometimes, there
are smoke and mirrors and people do end up feeling misled. On the flip side, there are
nuisance lawsuits out there and people will try to game the system sometimes. It's really
up to the courts to decide which fast food chains are cheating customers, through false
advertising or other means, and which ones aren't. Ultimately, the decisions of the courts
stand, and the court sided with KFC over the customer in this particular issue.
Taco Bell’s "Mystery Meat"
The Internet practically broke when people discovered that Taco Bill was filling its
tasty menu items with beef that contained a host of other ingredients. Lots of customers
felt cheated when they learned that the fast-food chain was adding a bunch of stuff to its beef,
including Torula Yeast, Lactic Acid, Maltodextrin, modified corn starch and more. What was really
shocking wasn't the fact that filler was added. That's not such a big surprise, although it
is a bit disappointing. What freaked people out is that the lawsuit claimed that only
thirty-five percent of Taco Bell's "beef" was actually beef. The lawsuit over the beef
deception came from a law firm based in Alabama, which complained that the extenders and binders
in the beef meant that it didn't meet government guidelines for marketing a food product as
beef. According to legal papers for the lawsuit, sixty-five percent of the beef mixture was
filler, including water, color and the ingredients that we already talked about. The lawsuit
was filed for a woman from California, who is named Amanda Obney. She didn't want money
from her suit. She wanted Taco Bell to be honest about what it is selling its consumers.
The lawsuit was eventually withdrawn, and Taco Bell says that it got a raw deal, because
its "beef" is actually 88 percent beef.
Are Jumbo Jack Burgers a Ripoff?
In 2014, a man named Michael Shames claimed that fast food chain, Jack in the Box, was
cheating its customers. He filed a lawsuit in summer of that year, which named a dozen
of the fast food restaurant's franchisees. Shames' lawsuit was centered on the fact that
Jumbo Jack burgers cost more when they are ordered from the Value Menu than they do when
ordered as part of combo meals. Shames says that ordering a Jumbo Jack from the Value
Menu and requesting cheese on top means getting gouged for an extra ten to twenty-five cents.
The lawsuit stated that the fast food company could be doing this on purpose or be unaware
of the price difference. The problem is that most people are unlikely to notice when they
are paying more for Jumbo Jacks with cheese when they order them from the Value Menu.
When you consider the amount of customers that roll through Jack in the Box restaurants
every day and night, you'll realize that the extra money that the fast-food chain makes
from Value Menu Jumbo Jacks really adds up. After a long legal battle, the suit was dismissed
two years later. Bear in mind that huge fast food chains like this have significant legal
firepower at their disposal. After all, they are huge corporations.
Arby's Horrible Sandwich Surprise
In 2005, David Scheiding filed suit against Arby's, asking for fifty grand because he
found a portion of human skin on a sandwich. He'd rejected a settlement offer from the
parent company that owns Arby's. He visited a location in Tipp City and that was when
he bit into his chicken sandwich and found a horrible "add-on". This extra topping was
a section of human flesh measuring three-quarters of an inch. Apparently, this customer was
telling the truth and didn't get the service and quality that he deserved. He was cheated
out of a good fast food meal after all. After an investigation, it was determined that a
manager at the restaurant was wearing a band-aid on one thumb, under a latex glove, when he
did food prep. He accidentally tore skin off his thumb while he was preparing lettuce.
After the accident, he cleaned up the area, but didn't dispose of the lettuce and was
unaware that skin was there.
Don't Go Over Four Toppings at Domino's Pizza
According to a Domino's insider who shared information with the Joe.co.uk website, Domino's
cheats its customers by shortchanging them of toppings if they order more than four.
Apparently, when you order more than four toppings, the company starts getting stingier
with the amounts of toppings that it adds to its pizzas. You get less of everything
this way. So, keep this in mind the next time you want to load a pizza with toppings. Maybe
stick with four toppings or less to get the standard amounts of each. Overall, Domino's
does seem to be a very professional outfit, but every fast food chain or other types of
restaurant gets some complaints. The same insider did report that Domino's puts a high
premium on cleanliness, which is nice we guess. According to the insider, an alert sounds
every half hour, which is a reminder to staff to wash their hands.
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