SOME Americans are smart,

by Kent 9 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Kent

  GIVE HIM HIS FUCKING PLANE!!!!!!!

  John Leonard is taking his Pepsi challenge to court. The 21-year old business student says he's collected his Pepsi points and wants his prize - A Harrier fighter jet like the one pictured in a pepsi promotional TV ad. On Tuesday, his Miami lawyers filed a lawsuit in Dade County, Fla., Circuit Court, accusing PepsiCo Inc. of breach of contract, fraud, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and misleading advertising. Pepsi maintains the commercial was a spoof and says it
  has a perfect right to use humor in its advertising.

  Leonard, a student at Shoreline Community College, saw a television ad last year as part of a Pepsi Stuff promotion in which customers who had racked up points on beverage containers could claim prizes. As a joke, the company also "offered" the $70 million fighter jet for 7 million points. That means Leonard would have had to drink 16,800,000 cans of Pepsi to earn the Harrier.

  To avoid having to drink that much Pepsi, Leonard called the company and said he was told he had the option of buying Pepsi points for 10 cents each. Leonard rounded up five investors and on March 28 delivered to Pepsi 15 original Pepsi Points plus a check for $700,008.50 for the remaining 6,999,985 points, "plus shipping and handling," the lawsuit says.

  After Leonard threatened to sue because he didn't get the jet, the company filed a pre-emptive suit July 18 in federal court in New York, seeking to have his claims declared frivolous and seeking
  reimbursement for the company's legal fees.

  Leonard denies his actions are a publicity stunt or an attempt to get Pepsi to settle out of court. He saw a plane as an entrepreneurial venture, saying perhaps he could take customers on thrill
  rides.

  Yakki Da

  Kent

  "The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler is that God is more proficient at genocide."

  Daily News On The Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses:
  http://watchtower.observer.org
• 

  teejay

  and i have YET to meet a smart norwegian...
• 

  VM44

  Here is a PDF file from a law school containing
  the Judge's decision:

  I like the part where the Judge explains "why the commercial is funny"

  [ http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/contracts/leonard_v_pepsico.pdf]

  --VM44
• 

  Yerusalyim

  It doesn't seem as funny when the judge "explains" why the commercial is funny. If you have to explain a joke, I guess it isn't funny. However, the judges use of the phrase "mere puffery" is priceless.

  Yeru

  YERUSALYIM
  "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
  [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
• 

  Amazing

  Hi Kent: Americans may or may not be smart, but businesses don't always learn from the past. In the early 1960s in Southern California, a car dealership adervtised on TV that they were selling a particular car for only a 1,000 banannas (A Euphamism in the USA for money, borrowed from the mafia). Also, a $1,000 would buy a nice car back then. So .....

  A man went to the store, bought a 1000 banannas and took them to the dealership. The dealership declined saying that their expression was understood to mean $1,000 and was used in a slang sense. The man took them to court, and won. They had to accept his 1,000 banannas that he placed into cold storage.

  Lesson: In the USA, when advertizing, say what you mean, and mean what you say. All else said should be stated so bland and meaningless that nothing can be made of it. Fluffing and Puffing are still done, but very well crafted by lawyers to assure advertisers that they will not be held liable to anything.

  Unfortunately: Pepsi's lawyers forgot to check the history books, and made the same type of stupid mistake. I agree that they should give away the plane to the man. It would fulfill their statements and create more goodwill and good advertizing than otherwise. And, though expensive, it will not break them financially. They may not be able to actually get that type of plane, so then simply offer the man payments in equal amount of the plane's worth for the next 20 years. They can buy an annuity and cut their costs in half.

  Maybe they will wake up and realize that they can take lemons and make some lemonaid out of this. - Amazing
• 

  TR

  Kent,

  you have to realize that there are 280 MILLION people in the U.S. Yes, there are a good amount of dummies here. There are dummies who file law suits for stupid, selfish reasons. Many are thrown out of court, but many get through somehow. Then there are companies who forget that there are sue happy dummies out there trying to make a shitload of cash.

  In a free country such as the U.S., you have to expect wierd shit to happen. I don't like it, but it happens. It's the price you pay for living here. Normal people are branded idiots for the actions of the few demented ones.

  TR

  "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every
  form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson*
• 

  VeniceIT

  HEY TJ!!! I resemble that comment [>:(]

  Ven
  hahha

  "I'm not a Troll I'm NOT!!!'
• 

  safe4kids

  Hey Kent!!

  I resemble that remark!!! HAHA!!

  Dana (of the borrowing a page from ven's book class)

  "A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born."
  Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• 

  reagan_oconnor

  ...and people wonder why I don't drink Pepsi.

  You would think that Pepsi would have learned a lesson from McDonald's: if a customer orders coffee (e.g., a hot beverage) and burns herself by spilling it all over her ancient, wrinkled cookie, she can make money for being stupid by suing McDonald's.

  Times like that make me embarrassed to be an American.

  --Reagan

  I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.
• 

  Simon

  There was similar fiasco in Britain a few years ago when Hoover offered free flights with certain products. People where buying vacuum cleaners *just* to get the plane tickets and it was costing Hoover more than they were making beacue some divvey somewhere hadn't done their sums.

  I say make them pay and the company can execute the bean counter (accountant) who didn't do his/her job or exact whatever revenge they see fit.