Burger King discount ‘mistake’ costs franchisee millions: ‘We screwed up’

A “mistake” allowed customers to combine Whopper discounts at certain Burger Kings, costing the franchisee millions.

A restaurant group based out of upstate New York revealed the extent of the mistake during a recent earnings call, according to reports. The discount mistake cost the franchisee an estimated $8.2 million.

Customers were able to take advantage of a deal that allowed them to buy two Whoppers at a discounted price and get fries and a drink for “value meal” prices, the Syracuse Post-Standard reports. This mistake cost the company $1.50 on every sale.

The CEO of Carrols Restaurant Group, Dan Accordino, said that the original discount was an offer for “two Whopper Jr. sandwiches for $4, two Whoppers for $5 and two Double Whoppers for $6,” according to the paper.

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Customers purchasing these burgers should have been charged full price for fries and drinks added to an order, but were mistakenly charged “value meal prices,” the paper reported

During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Accordino stated, “It was not an accounting issue, it was not a systems issue. It was a mistake. We screwed up and it cost us a fair amount of money,”  according to a transcript of the call on Sentieo, a financial services site.

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The double discount was in effect during the second and third quarters of 2019 and the Post-Standard reports that the double discount caused a reduction of $12.4 million in revenue which resulted in a net loss of $8.2 million.

“We screwed up, but the fact of the matter is, the underlying business is stronger than what our numbers reflect,” Accordino said during the earnings call.

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Since the mistake has been corrected, the franchisee’s revenue has risen.