When I drove by our local Taco Hell @ 5:45 they were lined up all the way outside the door and halfway around the building ...

Really, is a crappy 99 cent taco worth all this?

The Taco Bell I went to was enforcing a one person one taco rule. I think it's b/c they can only "credit" one taco per order. Also, unless you go out and check the car, how do you know the driver isn't lying?

Hey, these are hard economic times. Not everyone can spring 59 cents for a taco these days!

I can see that as a reasonable restriction. The person taking the order through the intercom has no way to tell how many people are in the vehicle. Once the vehicle pulls up, you could run into problems with tinted windows, small children, etc. It would slow down the whole process and be a pain on the person working the window. Regardless, don't sit there demanding something until the point they have to call the police to get you to move. Just get out and go inside for your taco!

way to go taco bell, waste tax payer money for not knowing your own official rules. i think they owe the police dept a little money.

@AMetamorphosis:

A quick survey of the clientele would probably provide great insight.

I know someone that works there and according to Taco Bell's corporate policies, one car = one customer. If everyone in the car wanted a free taco, they had to park and go inside, hence the line to get in the door the above poster mentioned.

There was someone at my friend's store that was irate over this rule because she said she couldn't walk. He wanted to say then how are you driving a car but he valued his job too much.

I told him to submit his stories from yesterday to notalwaysright.com.

I bet there are people who drive around for half an hour visiting different taco bells withing the 20 mile radius of where they live just to get extra free tacos...

I had so little trouble getting mine that I didn't think the one I went to was participating in the promotion at first.

It wasn't free free though. Cost me $.01.

@Adisharr:

Man, I LOVE free stuff as much as the next person, possibly more 'cause I'm cheap ( lol ) but I certainly am not willing to get arrested for one ... and a crappy one @ that ... lol

@tande04:

( grin ) ... and possibly a little heartburn :-)

Damn. I knew after going inside to get my taco I should have driven around the drive-thru. There was no one in the drive-thru, I figured the promotion was for inside only

I really hate organizations that don't think through free-type giveaways, which cause chaos and annoyance for everyone involved. It can even cause injury and violence (google for Walmart/Ikea/Apple laptop auction store opening riots, or in India, where people get crushed to death at these types of things). Taco Bell did this stupid promotion with no restrictions, which basically means you have no idea what's going to happen at your stores because of your idiocy.

How difficult would it have been, to create an online tool that would give out vouchers/coupons to people for the free taco? It could limit it by store, so that there's not going to be a stampede at any one place? And so that everyone knows how many tacos they're going to receive, no questions or issues.

poor thinking and planning leads to ridiculousness like this.

@RodAox:
I did. I got 7 tacos and a drink for 3 dollars, and half an hour of my time.

I got trapped in the tacobell parkinglot for a little bit because rude folks lined up for the drive thru wouldn't leave me any room to get out of my parking space.

To make matters worse, they weren't even lined up where they were supposed to be.

Sooooo... It's a fraud if you go to say more than one Taco Bell and ask for a free taco?

@kepler11: They did it last year as well. Didn't hear reports about idiots getting arrested.

As for planning, it is impossible to make anything idiot-proof, because idiots are so damn ingenious.

@kepler11:

Very good solution about the vouchers!
You might want to share this with the company as its a great idea!

@gggtur: They're a buck now.

Pity the franchisees who always take the hit for these promotions that corporate comes up with.

According to Taco Bell's rules:

To obtain the Free Taco, consumers must visit any participating Taco Bell® restaurant in one of the fifty (50) United States or the District of Columbia between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (local time) on the Redemption Date only and request a Free Crunchy Seasoned Beef Taco.

So each consumer has to request their taco. As I read it, the driver would request his, then each of the passengers would individually have to request their own taco. Why not walk the 20 feet into the store. I did, and it was raining/snowing in NJ.

@MSUHitman: There are lots of reasons that someone safely driving a car might have trouble walking.

@MSUHitman: There are hand controls for drivers who can't walk.. but they are usually also equipped with wheelchairs or whatever so they can get out of the car.

Seriously...if Taco Bell is going to play that game, just get out of the freakin' car and walk into the store.

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->: You can see how many people are in the car before you hand them the food. You didn't charge for them, so there is no problem with withholding the tacos after ordering.

Can't wait for the, "We are sorry for screwing up, here is another free taco day."

@lawnmowerdeth: I just looked it up on their site.
Crunch tacos = $0.89 + tax
Soft tacos = $0.99 + tax

I didn't drive through, but I had no trouble getting mine, including one for my 10-month old (her older brother ate it), all on one bill. We all shared a soda and an extra bean burrito... not quite dinner, but a satisfying (if unhealthy) snack was had for less than three bucks. I know it's a little dishonest to take one for the baby, we were kind of banking on the proposition that the minimum-wage earning teen manning the register wouldn't give a crap.

@tc4b:

Re: "the minimum-wage earning teen manning the register wouldn't give a crap."

I'm sure he didn't :-)

@JohnDeere: Dude, you have to pay a cop the same whether he's filling out a police report or sitting in his car sniping ebay auctions between calls.

@ Git Em SteveDave loves this guy--> : Actually when I worked there in high school (3-4 years ago), there was a button called 'Promo free' and you could ring anything up for free, no problems at all. I did this often for my friends that came through. The Taco Bells are still using the same systems and probably the same OS.

We hit 3 Taco Bells for this, two drive-throughs and walked into one. One drive-through gave us one per person, the other gave us a total of one. So, the policy may have been different based on individual stores.

One thing I found strange about this promotion was how under-promoted it was in the actual store. I recently participated in the Chik-Fil-A 'cow appreciation day' free sandwich/combo giveaway, where the stores really seemed to get into it much more, one restaurant even having one of the Chik-Fil-A cows come out. I had kinda been expecting a similar experience at Taco Bell, maybe with locations having a world-series theme or other shenanigans to draw customers out and get their Taco Bell loyalty on, as it were. Instead the attitude seemed more of almost being disgruntled about having to give all of these tacos away. What a lost opportunity for some good marketing!

went to 2 tacobell drve thrus. on teh second one I saw the previous order for a few seconds before teh attendant erased the screen and they had 2 free tacos on their screen. i didn't bother asking about it since I had already gotten 1 other free taco.

@LiquidGravity: but they'll spend a couple bucks in gas idling waiting for their free taco.

@FreemanB: If a business doesn't want to provide a special offer via the drive-through, they should disclaim it in the offer. Changing the terms after the offer is just sleazy.

If you want to get technical, any Taco Bell can opt out of the deal. Only participating locations offer the free taco, so it seems that each Taco Bell can make their own rules and refuse to give them out all together if they want to. Personally I think these giveaways are the worst idea, all it does is invite in freeloaders, and piss off legitimate customers

There should be a button outside the drivethrough window that you can push to electrocute the entire staff inside to death.

We got 1 free taco per person in the car... a woppen 89 cent taco each! good work, TB, I appreciate it. Unfortunately your communication to some of your branches must have sucked.

You know, if somebody's really that hard up for a 59-cent taco, somebody should tell them they're wasting gasoline sitting in the drive-thru lane. Park the damn car, already.

Even if the Taco Bells are all within a few miles of each other, you're still losing money based upon the amount of gas and time you expend. Unless you're going to Taco Bell and buying other items, you're losing money.

The reason for the promotion is to get you into the store and buy other food. Not just show up like an idiot and get one free taco. Seriously, if a store said that they were giving away 89 cents free to each customer, would it really be that great of a deal, unless it was within walking distance, and on your way to somewhere you needed to be? I know people would idiotically think it's a good idea to spend a $1.00 in gas to get in return 89 cents, but from a logical standpoint, it's not a good deal.

@kepler11: nice idea, but the taco bell location i went to was giving free tacos whether you asked for it or not.

if you ordered, let's say, a triple steak burrito, they asked if you would like a free taco with that. one dude ordered a volcano taco and they gave it to him for free.

i walked up with my hands in my pocket and said i'd like a free taco please. they handed me a receipt and like 2-3 minutes later i was eating my taco.

as a joke (or to flirt with the girl), one of the employees said the free tacos were ONLY if you know who stole the base. the girl in the front was baffled and started lookin around the room and at the rest of us in line for answers...so I was nice and said Jason Bartlett. kinda corny way to flirt, if you ask me.

@AMetamorphosis: It's not even worth 99 cents.

I don't see why people would go to such great lengths to get a free taco from Taco Bell. Let's think about this... They had to make thousands of extra tacos that day... Did anyone think how the quality of said tacos would suffer?

@JohnDeere: @JohnDeere: Or a free taco maybe?

@tc4b:See? Stereotyping DOES pay. ;)

How do you access the towns police dispatch log? Is it public information?

@AMetamorphosis: Heartburn and .02 for me (damn sales tax)

@Parkington:

Yes.

Are you going to get caught? Most likely no. Unless you drive up in the local HS School Bus #321 with 70 students aboard the bus and then visit another store and do the same thing. Store #5 will have heard of your exploits and the police will be waiting for you.

There is a reasonable test to "freebies".

When I was growing up we did a lot of traveling.... and the family dog was always along for the ride.

Going through drivethrus are a lot easier than visiting instore.... and Dad would always order a burger for the dog.... absolutely plain and would tell the order clerk they could skip the bun as well.

Maybe 20% of the time the "Dog burger" would be free. We were willing to pay for it, never asked for free, yet they would just give it to use. Other times we paid for the least expensive item on the menu... and received the "Dog burger".

When did we receive the special treatment? When the store wasn't busy.

Same thing applies to the "free taco". I got mine yesterday. Big Whoopee. And the store wasn't busy. (I guess it was in between the waves of people). Mom in front of me with young twin boys got more than 3 free tacos. She didn't ask, but she looked liked she could use the extra food. The clerk simply said "I slipped in a couple extras". Think the clerk gave extra tacos to the Cadillac SUV load of highschool football players that drove from store to store to get their free tacos?