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How a 'millionaire' businessman used ChatGPT to scam McDonald's: ‘Paste in…’

With this, he was able to trick the fast-food giant into giving him 100 vouchers in nine months.

Published on: Feb 20, 2024, 14:47:07 IST
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A “millionaire” businessman used ChatGPT to get free meals at McDonald’s, he said as per a report by the New York Post. Gage, the co-host of "All Things The Podcast", said that he has been using ChatGPT to scam McDonald’s into giving him free meals as he uses the tool to generate fake complaints.

ChatGPT logo (REUTERS)
ChatGPT logo (REUTERS)

He said that he “steals receipts from tills or tables” and used their unique code to open up a McDonald’s feedback survey. The 22-year-old said, “If you just put you’re highly dissatisfied with every single answer and then use ChatGPT — you just type in something like, ‘Write about a time that I had a horrible experience at McDonald’s where I ordered a Big Mac and make it under 1,200 characters."

“Copy that, you paste in…it’s usually really bad. And if it’s not bad enough, you might type, ‘Make it worse.’ You punch that in, fill in an email, boom. In, like, 12 hours, a representative will send you an email with one, two, or three or four meal vouchers completely for free,” he continued.

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With this, he was able to trick the fast-food giant into giving him 100 vouchers in nine months.

“It tastes better when it’s free,” he said, admitting that he has been doing this since the start of 2023.

But viewers were not very happy with the hack. Crticising Gaga's moves, one user wrote, “'It doesn't harm anyone'. It will when McDonald's shut down that branch because it's had thousands of bad reviews because someone it too cheap to buy a 99p burger”, while another commented, "Someone supports their family with that job. You’re putting it at risk."

"It does harm people, though. McDonald's obviously target their franchisees and if customer satisfaction drops below a certain threshold then they risk losing the franchise," a third user said.

A fourth user remarked, "This guy is what is wrong with this generation! These poor minimum wage workers getting threats to be fired because of his fraudulent accounts."

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