The $24 million McDonald’s nightmare is back after a driver finds a suspicious stash near the dumpster

A DoorDash driver in Arizona just stumbled upon a massive, suspicious stash of McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces sitting right next to a restaurant dumpster, bringing back memories of the notorious $24 million fraud scheme.

The driver, who goes by @usernamewetnoodles online, was picking up orders when he noticed a large cardboard box near the trash area, per BroBible. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the label: “2025 Monopoly.” He shared his unexpected discovery in a video that has now racked up over 2.1 million views. The box was barely taped shut, and when he moved closer, he realized it was absolutely packed with fry containers that still had unpeeled stickers on the back.

The driver was clearly thrilled about the discovery, announcing that he planned to open them publicly on a Live stream. This is definitely a major find, translating to potentially hundreds of free food items and maybe even some cash prizes. However, the internet immediately started speculating that he completely ruined an employee’s well-laid plan.

This driver doesn’t realize they are probably going to get in trouble for this

One top comment summed up the general anxiety by simply saying, “First mistake, this video.” Not just because an employee left that there for after their shift, likely to get the win, but because the TikToker has just broken the rules and filmed themselves bragging about it. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad that this driver got the perfect way to make millions of dollars, but ruined it because they wanted to feel special.

Let me break this down for you through the real Official Rules and Conditions. Rule 10 (“Verification”) of the U.S. rules explicitly states, “Game Pieces and Game Codes are null and void and will be rejected if not obtained through legitimate channels, as established by these Official Rules.” Legitimate channels are defined as purchasing an eligible menu item or using the official “No Purchase Necessary” mail-in or online entry method (Rule 4). A dumpster is not listed as a legitimate channel.

Voided & Discarded Pieces, per the ROI rules (Rule 3.14), note that when promotional packaging must be destroyed (for food safety or other reasons), “any corresponding Game Piece Labels attached to that packaging will also be destroyed without examination.” This establishes that any piece discarded by the restaurant is considered void and out of play.

The sponsor has the right to verify all prize claims and can disqualify any individual found to be “tampering with the entry/play process” or “acting in violation of these Official Rules” (U.S. Rule 13.A). So the user just gave video evidence and an admission of guilt, which ruined any chance of getting a big reward. They could claim the little stuff, but now it’s a waiting game before someone reports this to McDonald’s or Hasbro, the owner of Monopoly.

Here’s the big issue: if McDonald’s finds out, which they likely will as this story spreads, they won’t ignore it. They can sue this user for any amount of money they have already cost the company. This is because they knowingly broke the rules and redeemed prizes, and it is worse because they are bragging online about it.

The comments informing the user that this is against the rules don’t help their case. This kind of thing doesn’t look good to a corporate lawyer, and it could be argued that this hurts the integrity of the sweepstakes, so the user could be liable for even more than they spent. However, it’s not as bad as what had happened to this sweepstakes before, it’s really small potatoes (or french fries).

Still, it’s a single person who probably only claimed a few items and didn’t give any freebies away. This isn’t an influencer trying to get a free meal; it’s just someone who did something that wasn’t a good idea. So, just taking those items away or banning the user from the sweepstakes would be easy enough to do.