Value Meal or McDonalds Rip-Off Scheme

Consider this a fair warning to always watch what is going on as you place your orders through the McDonald’s drive thru. Tonight I ran through the Mickey D’s drive thru to pick up a quick dinner for myself and a friend. Wanting it to be cheap and/or inexpensive I was specifically ordering from the dollar menu. So I knew what price everything should have been [a dollar – or so one would think].

Here is a list of what I order and how it all went so terribly wrong [this is a sarcastic overstatement to some degree]. I shall be posting a copy of the receipt and photo of their outdoor menu as well.

I ordered 2 double cheeseburger [@ $1/ea = $2], 1 McChicken [$1], 1 Medium Fries [$1.79] then added a Sweet Tea [$1] …. That’s where I went wrong. After I ordered the tea I saw things start to switch around and change on the screen and should have said something at this point. I noticed the 2 double cheeseburgers had turned into one and one meal [I did not order a meal at any point the cashier did this on her own]. I know the meals only show the cost of the food and beverage is usually separate but I did not notice that the cost of the Sweet Tea was now $1.69 instead of the before mentioned $1. All I saw at this point was $2.80 for the meal, which by the way was a penny over what I was paying individually for the same sandwich and fries.

I was going to make a point of mentioning this after I paid [I was not too concerned about a penny]. So I went a head a paid then received my receipt. That is when I noticed the drink was now $1.69 not a dollar as advertised!

I guess when I ordered that Sweet Tea the highly trained employee decided to change my order to what they felt I wanted instead of what I actually ordered. I never ordered a meal but because I bought all the components of one, they took it upon themselves to charge me more for the items I did order.

I then proceeded to the next window to pick up my food and tell them about their mistake of overcharging me by 70 cents. My pointing this out seemed to upset the woman at this window as she snapped back at me, “well that’s the price when you order a meal. You save 10%.” I barely had time to spit out I did not order the meal nor does it save me anything over the individual dollar menu pricing before she took my receipt and disappeared.

Another guy reappears with my receipt in hand and talking to someone out of sight that it indeed was more than individual prices by 74 cents [70 cents plus tax]. He had not yet addressed me so I spoke up asking for my receipt back. He grumbled something about I would get it and 74 cents back, which I did a few moments later.

What gets me the most out of all this is the fact that not once did anyone ever acknowledge that McDonald’s was in the wrong, that the employee should never have changed my order without my knowledge, nor that they were sorry they overcharged me on my order. A pleasant smile and a “we’re sorry about that” would have gone a long way at the time. Quite frankly now I feel they owe me a little more than that [a free sandwich or coupon of some sort to win me back because other then a test visit to see if they are still doing that practice in a few days I most likely will not go back there].

So beware that your value meal is not costing you an extra 18% instead of saving you the supposed 10% McDonald’s is saying it does.