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Who passed go? Who collected $1 million?
fBI has charged McDonald’s Corporation with Monopoly fraud
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I n the wake of the FBI’s
recent arrests of those
^found trying to defraud
Me Donald’s through promo-
ticjns like the Monopoly game,
world’s leading food serv
icer retailer wants the public to
know that it
has been a
victim of
corporate
deception.
However, the
victim is not
McDonald’s,
but, instead,
anyone unfor
tunate enough to have put their
tru't into a money-driven insti
tution like a fast-food chain
with hope it would deliver any
kind of legitimate contest to
the public. McDonald's, as a
world-wide retailer with
29.(XX) restaurants in I2l
countries, had a social respon
sibility to ensure that its pro
motions were both secure and
fair, so they hired Simon
Marketing. This objective ulti
mately fell short of meeting
McDonald’s initial incentive.
I Admittedly, Americans are
beginning to expect less from
their national fast-food fran
chises. McDonald’s has com
promised the one aspect of
franchise business with no
room for error, the ever-popu-
lar game promotions, and they
arc destroying consumer trust.
At First glance, it does not
Appear to be McDonald’s fault.
An FBI investigation found
that since possibly as early as
I9 C >5, supplier Simon
Marketing has been duping
McDonald’s patrons of mil
lions of dollars. But
McDonald's failed
to do its part to
stop Simon
Marketing from
defrauding the pub
lic, a responsibility
that comes with running
a national, high-dollar prize
promotion.
[ No one in the corporate
offices seemed to take notice
as Jerome Jacobson, a top
security official at Simon
Marketing, was concocting a
pyramid scheme in which he
would collect, then illegally
distribute, winning game
pieces for all of the most valu
able McDonald’s prizes. Those
receiving the stolen game
pieces then would fraudulently
redeem them, collect the
money or prizes and then a cut
of the payout would go to
Jacobson himself. This went
on for six years, and
McDonald’s still feels that it
should not, in any way, be held
accountable. Since the inci
dent, McDonald’s has issued
Several carefully-worded press
releases in an effort to save
face and shift some of the
blame off of the golden arches.
McDonald’s CEO Jack M.
Greenberg insisted that his
restaurant was “betrayed by a
long-time supplier in a highly
sophisticated game of fraud
and deception.”
But, in spite of these reas
surances, the question on
everyone’s mind is how a cor
porate giant like McDonald's
could let its customers be
defrauded of millions of dol
lars in cash and prizes and
not take notice? It is only
now, weeks after the inci
dent, that McDonald’s is
instituting an independ
ent security task force
to “ensure the integrity
of future promotions
and protect its cus
tomers.” This task
force should
have been in
place years
ago
sumers will hold McDonald's
accountable for not doing its
part to prevent this theft.
America’s favorite fast-food
chain has taken the first steps
toward regaining
customer loy-
W hen there is a contest,
people want to win.
When there is a contest
like the annual McDonald’s
innocent customers, and to
blame it is nothing more than
sour grapes.
The McDonald's Monopoly
MEUSSA
BEDSOLE
for
McDonald’s
very first game
promotion. After all,
McDonald’s games like
Monopoly and “Who Wants to
be a Millionaire?” are based on
consumer trust.
Customers believe that
everyone has an equal chance
of winning, and they hold
McDonald’s responsible for
making sure everything is run
legitimately. So, just as the law
will hold Jerome Jacobson
accountable for theft, con-
by having random cash give
aways at some of its locations.
But the road to forgiveness is
often long and rocky, and only
time will tell how soon con
sumer trust can be restored.
McDonald’s officials must be
prepared to go to great lengths
to see to it that future promo
tions are not tainted in this
way, or be prepared to suffer
the repercussions if they are.
George Deutsch is a junior
journalism major.
neers
il sen-ice
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ne
MSC deserves no
money from fees
In response to Rolando Garcia's
news article:
I want my $40 back. Tuition for
each student includes add-ons
uch as a Student Transportation
Fee, Student Computer Services
Fee, and a Recreation Center Fee.
All these services, and more, are
provided for the student by Texas
A&M. Since they are services and
institutions included in our educa
tional system, it seems only natural
that we should support them mon
etarily. The Memorial Student
Center, it seems, we should not.
To mask the shady and un-demo-
cratic removal of President Rowan,
the MSC Council declared they
were, in fact, not a part of Texas
A&M. Let’s forget the fact that
Rowan was not allowed to defend
himself in front of his accusers.
Try to put aside how badly justice
was served when the people who
MAIL
accused him were allowed to vote
on whether he should be removed.
And try not to think about the
way Rowan was slandered and
called an “alcoholic” needing
“rehabilitation” by those same
accusers. The important thing here
is that such an unjust and unfair
institution as the MSC Council
does not deserve monetary sup
port from the students who tra
verse its halls or the University that
allows it to squat on Aggieland.
Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoy
lounging on the MSp’s dusty sofas
and purchasing insanely over
priced school supplies from its
bookstore. However, now that I
have learned it is not even a part of
Texas A&M, I question whether not
only myself, but we the students,
should have to financially support
a company not included in our
educational system. I.call for all of
Aggieland to write, telephone or
e-mail the MSC Council and
demand their $40 dollars back. I I
will not stand idly by and watch the
CALL
heart of Aggieland cut itself out
over a petty power struggle.
Erik Peterson
Class of 2004
Gender in schools
is important
In response to Jessica Crutcher’s
Sept. 4th column:
I first thought that Crutcher’s col
umn was some kind of joke. While
certainly suspending a kinder
gartener over an earring may seem
a little extreme, I found that much
less disturbing than the arguments
that Crutcher went on to make from
this incident. Asserting that the idea
of "men’s clothing” and “women's
clothing" are merely an oppressive
cultural implementation of “archaic
Judeo-Christian ideas” and that
requiring elementary school stu
dents to dress according to their
gender is a form of discrimination is
an inflammatory exaggeration.
Crutcher argues that differing
Monopoly
game, with
large and glam
orous prizes, people
want to win badly. When
people want to win biidly, there
are two reactions people have.
First, there are people who will
do whatever it takes to win,
regardless of the rules of the
game. Then there are people
who will not be able to win;
they will sit back and cry
about it, blaming anyone they
can for their misfortune. The
recent McDonald’s Monopoly
scandal has been plagued by
both of the latter. Eight people
have been arrested for connec
tions to a scandal involved in
stealing McDonald’s winning
game pieces, allowing them
(and only them) to be the win
ners of the large prizes. So
everyone else lost, and the los
ers are crying that McDonald’s
cheated them. McDonald’s was
cheated just as much as its
dress codes for boys and girls teach
es students that “there are impor
tant biological differences between
the sexes.” The glaring flaw in this
argument is that it ignores the incon
venient fact that there are important
biological differences between the
sexes. Recent studies have only
confirmed this truth, which, until
recently, had never even been ques
tioned. Equal treatment of men and
women is one thing, but trying to
make us believe that we are all the
same is insupportable.
How about a world where it is not
sexual discrimination to expect men
to be men and women to be
women, and where the sexes can
acknowledge their differences and
utilize them to complement one
another? Bravo to the Houston
school that recognizes that boys
and girls are different. I would be
afraid to send my child to a school
that said anything to the contrary.
L. Harris
Class of 2004
game is
supposed to
award large
sums of money
to winners. The
prizes range
from free ice
cream or french
fries to a new car or
large sums of money.
McDonald’s wanted
to be fair about the
game, and because of
that, the company was
scammed. The people at
McDonald’s wanted the prizes
to be equally distributed across
the country. They hired a com
pany called Simon Marketing,
Inc. to make sure that the con
tests were set up fairly.
According to The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution,
Jerome Jacobson of
Lawrenceville, Ga., worked for
Simon Marketing where
“among his duties was making
sure game pieces were fairly
distributed to various areas.”
However, after a one-year
investigation, the FBI believes
that Jacobson was distributing
the winning pieces to himself.
At this point, it is believed that
he was working alone within
the company, but he was cer
tainly not alone in/this scandal.
Seven other individuals from
states including Texas, South
Carolina, Florida and Rhode
Island have been arrested for
their involvement in what may
have been the biggest scandal
ever in these kinds of contests.
The way that the prizes
were rigged was simple, yet it
continued to work for many
years. Jacobson was allegedly
stealing the winning game
pieces, contacting mere
acquaintances and entrusting
them to get in on this scam. He
would distribute the winning
pieces to
these people
and, in
return, gain
a cut of each
prize.
This case
is not even
two-sided.
Blaming
McDonald’s is childish and
silly. A crime was committed
against McDonald’s, and just
because other customers feel
that they had to suffer, it is
McDonald’s that currently is
short at least $13 million.
McDonald’s did not cheat its
customers purposely — how
could the company possibly
benefit from this scandal? It
should not be believed that
just because the stealing went
on for six years that
McDonald’s automatically
knew what was going on. The
large, fast-food company did
not even know about the.
problem or the investigations
until a month after the FBI
had begun.
For all the sore losers out
there, stop crying about how
McDonald’s made it impossi
ble to win. It is just a game,
and because one person cheat-;
ed, it was ruined for everyone.;
Sadly, sometimes that is how ;
life is, and the best bet is to
just get over it. While
McDonald’s is in no way
responsible, it still feels very
sorry about the entire situation.
Jack Greenberg, McDonald’s
chairman and CEO in the
United States said, “customer
confidence is at the very heart
of McDonald’s business. We’re
determined that nothing gets
between us and our customers
and we’re outraged when any
one tries to breach that trust.”
It even introduced a new
game specific for the Labor
Day weekend with $1 million
dollar random prizes across the
country, simply to prove itself
and its desire to have true win
ners.
McDonald’s is a place
where there are Happy Meals
with toys, hamburgers for 29
cents on Mondays and
America’s favorite fries — like
it or not, this company is part
of our culture. The company
knows that, the customers
know that and there is no way
that McDonald’s would cheat
its customers out of anything.
Melissa Bedsole is a senior
psychology major.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
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