A Montreal man claims McDonald's is ripping you off — and that you don't even know it's happening.
Mark Julien says he started to notice something was amiss when he arrived at a McDonald's for breakfast, and noticed he was being charged $6.40 for his $6 breakfast trio.
It turned out that when he asked if he wanted a medium coffee with his combo, he was being upsold.
A breakfast trio is only supposed to come with a small coffee — a medium costs 40 cents more.
Customers are able to specify whether they want any one of four coffee sizes upon ordering, but when Julien decided to experiment and visit three different drive-through McDonald's outlets — two on the island and one on the South Shore, he got the same question every time when it came to the size of his coffee: "Medium?"
None of the employees told him that the medium coffee costs more.
“My biggest pet peeve, with this whole thing, is that if you're going to want to upgrade a coffee, at least make it a decision the person can make," Julien told CTV Montreal. "Just saying ‘medium’ to a client isn't giving them a choice; it's forcing a choice upon them, and that takes away our buying power."
Consumer laws state that merchants need to mention any important fact about a product before they sell it — even something as seemingly picayune as 40 cents more on coffee.
“The best practice would be for a merchant to mention it is an upgrade, and that some extra charge would be added,” said Sylvie De Bellefeuille from the consumer group Option Consommateurs.
McDonald's denies upselling is a marketing tactic they use, though it has been reported as an issue in many industries, including cable companies, car dealerships and insurance firms.
“It's an enormous profit maker,” said Harold Simpkins, a marketing professor at the John Molson School of Business.