When you order food from a drive-thru, it’s not uncommon to open your bag and discover that the employee mistakingly switched your order with someone else’s. Or, sometimes you might find that you’re missing a burger or that they forgot to give you the ketchup packets you requested. No biggie! Employees make mistakes, which are bound to occur especially when they’re working at a lightning-fast pace to fulfill numerous orders at once.
If you think you’ve dealt with a major order mix-up before, this viral story will make you reconsider. The Terry family was traveling from Tennessee to Florida and casually stopped to order food at a McDonald’s drive-thru while on their trip. The only problem was, they discovered that the “breakfast” they ordered wasn’t inside the bag the employee handed to them. Instead? It contained hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Greg, the father of the family, was stunned when he saw the contents inside the bag as he was about to hand the food out to his family.
“My husband opened the bag and discovered that there was money inside and said ‘You’re not gonna believe this,” said Stacye Terry.
Once Greg told his family about the massive amount of money contained within the bag, he informed them that they’d have to go back and return it. It’d be the right thing to do after all.
“It was a fair amount of money. I could have done some shopping,” Stacye joked.
But of course, everyone agreed that the money would need to be returned to its rightful owner, so back through the drive-thru the family went. Not long later, an employee came out running to their car after realizing what she had done. The honest family happily handed back the wads of cash, got their food, and hit the road.
You might be asking, “Why did an employee accidentally give so much money to a customer?” It turns out, the money contained in the bag was supposed to be deposited into the bank. Fortunately for McDonald’s, and the employee who made the mistake, the Terry family didn’t steal a dollar!
Due to their honesty, McDonald’s gave a big thank you to the family, and Owner/Operator Phil Gray issued a statement reading:
“We are grateful for this customer and the action they took upon realizing our error. We are looking into why this mistake happened, but what is most important to us is knowing that we are part of a community with the values that were evidenced by this person’s actions.”
Whether or not the Terry family received a reward for their selfless deed, the good news is that their story will encourage others to have a good heart and to never do something they would never want someone to do to them.
Click below to hear an interview with the family!
