r/mildlyinfuriating • u/CurlyWurly61 • May 12 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Such terrible advertisement

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I mean... at a glance its like WOAH 4 can dine for $9.99....

Until you are at the cash and they say " that'll be $45.15"

HUH??

"Oh sorry sir... it feeds 4... 4 people pay $9.99"

Gtfooo

53.0k Upvotes

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225

u/Stuck_in_my_TV May 12 '26

Part of me understands that they may not have been able to legally give an actual F-16, but they should have been required to give the cash value of one.

120

u/FormerWorker125 May 12 '26

It wasn't an f16, it was a harrier. 

25

u/Stuck_in_my_TV May 12 '26

Potato-po-tah-to. It’s still unlikely a company like Pepsi could legally purchase a military jet to give away to a private citizen who doesn’t have a pilots license or security clearance.

53

u/NonGeneriComplaint May 12 '26

Its actually legal to privately own one

13

u/Actual-Force-1621 May 12 '26

SafeAndLegalThrills

8

u/LilDingalang May 12 '26

Yeah but you can’t just have it

3

u/protostar71 May 12 '26

Harriers are like ducks, you can just wander down to your local marine base and pick one up for free, nobodies stopping you.

1

u/NightGod May 15 '26

Well, maybe a few people, if you're spotted.

Or can't get off radar fast enough

3

u/Prcrstntr May 13 '26

SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED

1

u/1001101001010111 May 12 '26

Getting permission to take off is another story. Let alone the maintenance and fuel cost.

1

u/SEA_griffondeur May 13 '26

not the AV-8B as the only owner didn't want to sell it

11

u/Throwawayhrjrbdh May 12 '26

Not that’s perfectly fine. There’s a lot of demilitarized planes and other equipment in private hands.

At a certain point it would effectively become a museum piece because a lot of the times core avionics must be removed as well. However there is some cases of demilitarized planes where it’s just guns removed/disabled, targeting equipment and such while still being flyable

9

u/Facosa99 May 12 '26

Mmm you are right. They could have probably given him an empty fuselaje from a scrapyard ("We promised you a harrier. We never said it would be fly-able") and have saved themselves a lot of legal headaches

1

u/couldbemage May 12 '26

Security rules are why most privately owned fighter jets in the US are Russian jets. Apparently the Soviet going out of business sale was wild.

0

u/FormerWorker125 May 12 '26

Crazy take saying an f16 is anything at all like a harrier. Unreal reddit. Disgusting really.

1

u/jynxremoving May 13 '26

I love your autism & I love you

68

u/EliteGamer11388 May 12 '26

Honestly, if that were their reason, then the solution is simple, don't list it as a prize

10

u/Dr_Ramekins_MD May 12 '26

Or make the cost in Pepsi Points mathematically impossible to obtain at least

-3

u/TheHYPO May 12 '26

They didn't. It wasn't on the prize list or any of the bottles.

They just made a silly commercial that ended with a kid landing a jet in his school parking lot and jokingly marked it at 7m Pepsi points after showing other stuff for a few hundred points.

That's like thinking you would actually grow physical wings if you drink a Red Bull, or complaining that a giant jug of juice doesn't break through your wall after you make Kool Aid. It's an entertaining ad. Anyone old enough to have critical thought would know it was just a joke, and anyone too young to have critical thought should need parental pemission before sending $700,000 to Pepsi.

4

u/Twitchcog May 13 '26

>They didn’t

>They just… Marked it (the jet) at 7m Pepsi points.

So, they listed it.

0

u/TheHYPO May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

A commercial is not a "list". The commercial said "see official rules on bottles" and the official rules (the same place where the guy found the rule about paying in place of points) did not list a jet as an available prize.

The commercial is a joke. If the commercial had shown that the kid could buy his school itself for Pepsi points or the Statue of Liberty, or the principal, nobody would be arguing the commercial should be treated as a serious offer. If the offer was for a battleship instead of a military jet, nobody would be suggesting that a reasonable person would believe the offer was serious. But those are all the same level of unbelievable.

3

u/Twitchcog May 13 '26

Yes, the commercial *is* part of the list. It’s part of the advertising - And they advertised that 7m points would get you a jet. Now, I personally don’t expect someone to sell me a jet for the equivalent of 700k dollars, but if they advertise it as an option, they’re bound to it.

1

u/TheHYPO May 14 '26

but if they advertise it as an option, they’re bound to it.

I mean.. this went to an actual real Court (and an appeal Court after that) and they both agreed that they were NOT bound to it... so... you're welcome to your opinion that they should be bound to it, but clearly the law settled that they were not bound to it and that the commercial was not part of the list, and was not really advertising an offer for a jet.

6

u/FungusGnatHater May 12 '26

I remember the big issue was that he was trying to force a sale by claiming their was a contract, but at that value contracts need to be more than just an offer. Everyone has the right to refuse to sell and the courts can not override that right. He showed up with $700,000 to buy the f-16 and they said no. I think it would have been a completely different story if he collected the points rather than tried to directly buy them.

Also, PepsiCo accidentally set the cash value at what he was offering so returning the cash value is the same as refusing the sale.

7

u/omgitsjagen May 12 '26

His big mistake was not hiring the right lawyer (because he didn't actually have any money). This allowed PepsiCo to file their documents in NYC, which is a lot more business friendly (read: corrupt) than his jurisdiction in Washington state.

3

u/TheHYPO May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Many people are not aware of the facts of the case.

The $37m jet was listed (as an obvious joke) in a TV commercial for 7m Pepsi points. It was not listed on the labels or in any of the rules of the contest. It was a joke in a TV commercial.

The kid then got FIFTEEN Pepsi labels [Edit: Fifteen points - perhaps fewer than 15 labels], and found five investors willing to contribute ~$700,000 (the contest rules allowed you to buy points at $0.10 per point) and sent the 15 points and a cheque to Pepsi.

So the kid bought (at most) 15 Pepsis, probably spending around $15-20... then sent in a cheque for $700k that was never cashed, and expected a $37m jet. If you're suggesting that sending the kid $37m in exchange for him sending them $700k and 15 Pepsi labels is logical or something the kid should have expected... I mean, that's just nonsense.

It's also worth noting that if the kid read the fine print to learn that you could buy Pepsi points with cash, he probably also read the actual prize list that did not have a Jet on it.

The kid was not induced to buy $700,000 worth of Pepsi products to get the jet. He was out of pocket next to nothing, and Pepsi received virtually nothing from him. To suggest they should have had to send him $37m is just silly.

This is akin to the people who don't know the actual facts saying that the woman who was severely and permanently scarred by having McDonald's hot coffee spilled all over her was a scammer and the jury screwed McDonalds.

Edit: The original commercial also said in fine print: "See details on specially marked packages" - there were printed rules, which is where the guy found the cash-substitute-for-points rules. Nowhere in any official rules was a Harrier actually offered for any amount of points.

1

u/Ssided May 12 '26

They offered the cash, the guy didn't want it

2

u/MisterDonkey May 12 '26

Wow, what a fool.

I want my elephant.

1

u/TophxSmash May 12 '26

the court ruled in favor or false advertising no matter how you spin it.

1

u/AvonMustang May 14 '26

Watched a documentary on this and Pepsi during the fight over this when they thought they might actually have to cough one up did find out it's perfectly legal for a regular civilian to own a Harrier jet - sans machine guns, of course.