Would McDonalds rat you out? | Hacker News Reader

Would McDonalds rat you out?

non-linear-response.blogspot.com

15 pointswesleyd10 comments

This happened long ago, in the pre-internet era, and a few minutes of searching yielded nothing to substantiate it but it is true to the best of my recollection.

McDonald's has long had a "Birthday Club" where you could fill out a form with your name, address, age, and gender. They would mail an invitation to you for your birthday with a coupon for a discount and free ice cream for you and your friends.

Someone (not me!) wanted to take advantage of the free ice cream so they filled out the form with a made-up name, the correct address and a birthday that wasn't far off. The invitation arrived in the mail with the coupon. They enjoyed the free ice cream and soon forgot about the whole thing.

About ten years go by and they get a letter from the Selective Service System reminding them of their obligation to register within thirty days of their 18th birthday. The letter was addressed to no one they knew. Then they remembered... It was the name they used long ago to get free ice cream at McDonalds.

It's amazing what you can find on Flickr. Here are images of the Ronald McDonald Birthday Club form from 1975:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wafflewhiffer/3093556082/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wafflewhiffer/3093555518/

If the Department of Homeland Security has its way, this is what America will be like in 10 years.

See: DHS's Walmart campaign to get people to spy on their neighbors http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-06/us/washington.dhs.walmart...

This person's entire argument is "I was outside a McDonald's, an employee looked at me oddly, and then I was arrested by police. Obviously McDonald's ratted me out." Uh, what?

There is also this part: "The franchise was long known among activists in Belarus as an unsafe place."

I love the follow-up question to engage his audience: "Did you ever have a similar experience with McDonald's?"

If only I had a dollar for every time that has happened!

Big franchise brands spent millions of dollars trying to ensure consistency of experience across stores. Just imagining brand managers reading that line about similar experiences and thinking "I hope so!"

Sorry, but I missed the "obvious" part. He says that this incident made him "wary of the franchise", I think its pretty clear that he is not absolutely sure. Combined with the rumors, I do think he has a case.

Hi, this person is me.

I was likewise skeptical about the claim until it was my time to be detained (technically it wasn't an arrest). I think it is mentioned in the opening part.

It is as anecdotal as anecdotal gets but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a grain of truth to it. McDonalds franchises are expensive by American standards. They are even more expensive by poor country standards. So one has to be pretty rich to open one.

In my experience the way people stay rich in poor countries is by sucking up to the government. And the best way to suck up to the government is by outing dissidents. So while I doubt it's corporate policy I can see how it would happen.

if they can also get the rat parts back out of me, that'd be cool.

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