1967 George C. Scott, the movie was the Flim-Flam Man. There is a cameo by my step-brother's crazy uncle. However the point is that in one scene George sells a punch-card board to a local business. A punch-card has hundreds of little numbers, you pay a quarter or nickle back then. If you punch out a little rolled up piece of paper with a prize on it, you win the prize. So George was the seller, then his young protege comes in, with the location memorized for the prizes, and wins the Grande ($10) and second ($5) prize, plus George had sold the store owner the board for a dollar or two in the first place.
I have pondered that. The store owner didn't actually lose any money if he put out the punchboard and sold chances to an unsuspecting public. It was the public that actually lost there opportunity cost to win.
The same with McDonalds. McDee was going to give out a prize, so they were not out of anything. It did not distract from the contest, because no one knew what was going on until after the contest was over. So what was the claim that McDees had? What was their damages.
Oh sure, some damage in reputation, but do you blame the victim for the actions of a thief?
Its almost impossible to argue with you because I read what you are saying, and I can't decide if you are insane or not.
I do not know why you even included that movie part... but okay.
McDonald loses a lot from what happened. They lose the money that they gave away in the prizes, and then afterwards, they had to give away a second set of prizes to attempt to appease the people. All in all, they lost around 5 million dollars from the event (Probably more), as well as a hit to their reputation.
In the story owner does lose money. First he pays for the board, and then he pays the 10 and 5 dollar prizes. Depending on how many people purchased a chance at it before it was won, he either lost or mad a tiny profit. In the McDonald's case, the consumers lose out massively because they have 0% chance to win the prizes that they wanted to win.
This in return negatively effects every single event that they attempt to launch in the future. People will refuse to join it and the event is useless. A bad reputation is a bad thing for any company. As such, the failure of the company that they have a contract with hurts Mcdonalds massively.
This entire incident happened because of gross negligence on the behalf of the contractor, and as such, they violated their contract.
