Sweepstakes Fraud

One of the most popular sweepstakes in recent years in the U.S. has been the McDonalds’ Monopoly promotion sweepstakes. This promotion has been running since 1987. The purpose of the sweepstakes is to get more customers into McDonalds’ restaurants by offering various prizes – most frequently, free McDonalds’ food items. This sweepstake is also a case study in some of the legal pitfalls to be avoided when conducting promotions.
In 2000, the McDonalds’ promotion was halted after fraudulent activity was uncovered. A subcontracting company, Simon Marketing, had been hired by McDonalds&#8217 to run their Monopoly sweepstakes – including organizing and promoting the game. Simon Marketing executives were allegedly able to rig the sweepstakes by removing the most expensive game pieces from the general circulation and distributing them to associates in order to redeem the prizes and share in the proceeds. From the period between 1995-2000, associates of Simon Marketing won almost all of the top prizes. The scheme was uncovered when one of the associates informed the FBI of fraud.