What crucial lesson can your business learn from the McDonald's "McMillions" Monopoly game?

McMillions

On the surface, The McDonald's McMillions Monopoly game looked like a perfectly legitimate campaign. if you were to watch how it was run, nothing in particular would stick out to you as alarming. In reality, the entire thing was unknowingly rigged by one man and his network of accomplices

Who was responsible?

The director of security at Simon Marketing, Jerome P. Jacobson, raised no concern with his employers, and McDonalds likely didn't even know his name. Jerome, or Uncle Jerry as most knew him had a notable attention to detail in his work, was previously employed as a cop and as a mechanic, and dealt with severe paralysis only 8 years prior. On paper, nothing about the man would have warranted any suspicion from his employers or the clients he worked with. In fact he was actually hired by Simon Marketing largely due to the fact that he seemed like an honest and reliable man.
Behind his facade, only a select group of people knew the real Uncle Jerry, several of which were hardened criminals.

The theft

Simon Marketing and Uncle Jerry were contracted by McDonalds to fairly distribute the winning monopoly tickets to the select McDonalds locations. While on his way to deliver the winning tickets, Uncle Jerry would go to the restroom where nobody would be watching him, and quickly steal the winning pieces, replace them with normal ones, replace the broken anti-tamper seal with a new one, and walk out like nothing had happened.
While running the McMillions campaign, McDonalds had been dealing with several cases of blatant theft, like one instance where a teenager stole 3,000 game pieces. In McDonalds eyes, Simon Marketing and by proxy Uncle Jerry was the solution to dealing with fraud and theft. To their knowledge, every winning game piece was being honestly selected and delivered to their locations, and this was all thanks to the wonderful services and employees at Simon Marketing.

The Accomplices

Like most criminals, Uncle Jerry wasn't able to work alone. He needed a plentiful supply of completely unrelated, morally flexible people to redeem the winning game pieces for him. as long as he kept the rest of his act clean, this was the one place where he could get caught. At first, he was able to find his Monopoly-money-launderers and McDonalds mules in his day to day life through friends of lose acquaintances.
Once the operation grew and accomplices started running thin, Uncle Jerry eventually got involved with Gennaro Colombo, a professional criminal and self acclaimed member of the Colombo Crime Family who ran a number of shady or illegal operations, such as underground casinos and adult nightclubs. Gennaro and his associates gave Uncle Jerry a steady supply of people who would cash in the money and keep quiet. With this new business relationship, Uncle Jerry was no longer a run of the mill, white collar scammer, but member of a real organized crime group that was willing to kill if people threatened them. Once one gets involved with organized crime, they're usually stuck there, and this was true for Uncle Jerry. Even after Gennaro Colombo died in a car accident (which was possibly a hit), Uncle Jerry still needed to work the same group of people to keep his operation running.

The end

If someone in Uncle Jerry's network of associates wanted to come clean and blow the whistle on the operation, they would likely be very scared to say anything to McDonalds or Simon Marketing, because if word got back to their co-conspirators, both them and their family would have a huge target on their back.
Eventually, someone who was likely upset with Uncle Jerry in some way gave a tip to the FBI's anonymous tip line that ultimately led to Uncle Jerry's imprisonment, and the end of the McMillions scandal. At this point, around 24 million dollars had already been stolen. If someone had been able to say something to either McDonalds or Simon Marketing with full confidence that their identity would be protected, McDonalds could have lost less money, and many people could have won the game fairly and honestly.

What can we learn?

As a business owner or anyone responsible for a group of employees, it can be extremely difficult to tell if someone is doing wrong, because you are the first person they want to hide it from.
It's best to catch problems like the one McDonalds had as soon as possible, and ideally before the FBI has to get involved.
While they may not be murdered by the mafia, co workers will often be scared to say something about a problem due to fear of a vindictive or cruel co worker learning that they told on them.
The best way to prevent problems like this from happening at your business is to have your own tip-line portal. Ideally, you would want the most secure, anonymous, usable and reliable solution possible so that anyone who may need it has no concerns or apprehensions when using it.

Click Here to learn about the tip-line solution that Secret Contact offers.