Have you ever been to a fast-food restaurant and noticed the wonderful looking picture on the wall only to end up with some slop in your actual order. I know I have. I would say that this happens almost every time. We all know why that is tough unless you are a numb-nuts and that is because they hire professional photographers that spend ages on making a food item look absolutely incredible and sometimes to accomplish this they use items that aren't even edible to get the perfect shot.
Well Taco Bell has been sued for intentionally misleading customers with their depiction of the Crunchwrap Supreme and Mexican Pizza. According to plaintiff Frank Siragusa lawyers, Taco Bell has overstated the amount of filling in each of these items by at least double. The lawyer stated that misleading information like this is particularly important during these times of inflation. I found this to be a kind of hilarious statement because its not like restaurants only recently started having imagery of their food that is dramatically different than the finished product.
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I'm not going to argue with Frank's statement about the advertisement being different than the actual product, but I will argue with him filing a lawsuit over it. This is a blatant attempt at making money off of a giant corporation because of something that everyone knows is true. The pictures on the wall or on TV is NOT what you are going to receive and I believe that most people are very aware of this. I think Frank is aware of this and has been for quite some time. There are just people out there that are going to attempt to make money with frivolous lawsuits all the time. This is a lot like the guy that sued Buffalo Wild Wings for false advertising when the "boneless chicken wings" were a meat product that never contained bones and not a magical chicken that was bred without having ever had bones in it's wings. This person was also upset because he presumed that the end product would be chicken wing meat that had the bones removed instead of the breast meat concoction that it obviously was going to be.
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I also feel like these photos are cherry-picked because I have been an avid user of Taco Bell for many years and while the products I get in the end don't look like the things on the menu, they don't look this bad. It wouldn't surprise me if the product had been intentionally smushed to make it look as bad as possible just for the added impact.
The plot thickens though: The lawyers for Frank also have pending lawsuits against McDonald's and Wendy's going on right now over the same topic of false advertising based on imagery contained on the walls and online etc. Another lawyer that Frank has (he has a lot of lawyers for the "lower-income" person he claims to be) is also suing Burger King but this lawsuit was thrown out.
The plot gets even thicker! Taco Bell does their fair share of suing people as well because they sued much smaller chain Taco John's when Taco John's refused to allow Taco Bell to use the phrase "Taco Tuesday." I am actually quite alarmed that Taco John's thought they could ever copyright something like that since it is basically said all over the world.
The United States is a crazy place and I believe that litigation is out of control with people suing just about anyone that they think they can in the hopes that said establishment is going to look at how much it is going to cost them in legal fees and then just pay off the plaintiff to make the situation go away. The legal system shouldn't function like this but in my opinion the legal system in the United States and probably everywhere else in the world, doesn't really work anyway. It's just a shame that people like Frank make a broken system feel even more broken by suing fast food joints over something that everyone already knows anyway.
Does he really think that the 17 year old high school students in the kitchen banging out a burrito in 22 seconds have the time and talent necessary to prepare everything to Michelin standards?
I hope these suits get thrown out the same way that the Burger King one did but to be fair to Burger King, I would say that their end product probably most closely represents what they advertise. Do you agree?
