Miller: You Won A Million Dollars. No, Just Kidding.
A man from south suburban Chicagoland was hanging out in an Orland Park bar when a promotional team from Miller started handing out what appeared to be prize tickets.
The tickets started out, "No one knows that I..." and then featured a scrambled message that needed to be decoded using blue cellophane. Some of the tickets promised free bottle openers, or said cryptic things like "I like to take walks on the beach."
Ed's ticket said, "I won a million dollars." After showing his friends to make sure he wasn't seeing things, he called the Miller people over and asked them if it really said that he had won a million dollars. The "Miller Girl" said that it did, in fact, say that, but they "weren't supposed to get that ticket." Then she ripped the ticket out of Ed's hands and walked away.
He's understandably annoyed.
The expert Fox Chicago talked to thinks that Miller might be in violation of Illinois law, but Miller claims there never was a prize to begin with, and that the "won a million dollars" phrase was the same as the "like to walk on the beach" phrase.
Right. So why did the girl snatch the ticket away? Who knows. All we know is that we feel really bad for Ed. He seems like a nice guy and could certainly use a million dollars. At the very least, he didn't deserve to have his head messed with like that.
What a crappy promotion!
Man Says He Won a Million Dollars from Miller Beer Contest, Company Denies It [Fox Chicago]
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Comments:
That's worth contacting a lawyer over. Too bad he let them get away with the ticket.
Ed should have hit the Miller girl with his cane and wrestled the million dollar ticket out of her hands. Then he could have taken it to a lawyer and the media.
I love it when people know they're going to be interviewed by the TV people and they put on their fancy jeans, suspenders and t-shirt.
Why hasn't he pressed charges for theft and assault?
When you get that old, are you really gonna care what you look like? They are probably lucky he put on pants.
Looks like Miller just lost themselves a customer.
This reminds me of a similar - if not as high-value incident that happened to me:
A Carlsberg promotion was running in the local pub - You got a similar scratch card that revealed a prize with a phrase like "Drink up - you've won a pint!" or "Get dressed - you've won a T-shirt!". Well, I got one that said "Sit down - you've won a chair!" with a picture of a Carlsberg director's chair. I took it up to the bar to claim the prize, and the barmaid said "Oh no, that just means 'sit down' cos you didnt win anything."
It was only in another pub weeks later that I saw one of the chairs behind the bar and realised it WAS one of the prizes and I had been cheated out of it... Gah...
There isn't a million dollars... any more. Someone has converted it into many delicious cakes and built a fort from them.
Not only that, but according to the picture, she ripped off his sleeves and took those as well.
This post with the photo and these comments have me laughing out loud. Thanks everyone! Ed should get something.
"Sorry, we were going to offer a million dollars as a prize but our CEO decided to buy a house in Bermuda and take a month off, so it no longer exists"
Holy crap, I can't believe this actually happened! If I were Ed, I'd be hiring a lawyer (which I almost *never* advocate) to send a friendly letter to Miller asking for an explanation.
Consumerist, please let us know if this posting results in any response from Miller.
Wow. That is downright cruel. If I drank that swill, I would surely drink something else after reading that. Good thing for Miller (do people actually drink that crap in the first place??) that I prefer Long Island Iced Tea.
@Musician78: You'd be surprised how many people actually drink Miller brand beers. One guess... It's a lot!
This guy should get a case of every type of Miller brew, and a new miller shirt, hat, pants, suspenders and any other trinket, boggle or knick-knack they can serve up.
My question would be, what did the fine print on the little ticket say? All contest/promotion rules and prizes have to be spelled out fairly explicitly-- including an escape clause for misprinted awards-- otherwise Miller is breaking some law. Fraud, I suppose.
Either a $1MM prize exists and he won it, or it does not and he should get a consolation keg of Lite for the mistake.
It should have read, "noone knows that..."...I drank a million dollars in Miller.
Sounds to me like someone higher up wanted all of the "million dollar" pieces out of circulation so this exact sort of situation didn't occur.
in other news...
"a former miller girl wins a million dollars"
@bluemeep: Sounds to me like the Miller Girl thought she'd checked all the tickets, but she missed one.
i want a cake fort.
he demanded a moat around his trailer filled with funnel cake
I watched the video. Miller, please give Ed some free beer.