Apparently the story goes that this 20-25 year old bottle was found in 2016(?), which went viral online, and Nintendo wound up sending the guy an unopened SNES anyway. (Plus a bunch of other stuff)

  • brian@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    I did always wonder the logistics behind that. Did those businesses get reimbursed from the contest runners? I like the idea of them trading in their piles of caps for cash

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Yes, you can find dollar off coupons in stores and the fine print says the merchant will be reimbursed

      • BossDj@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        When I worked at a chain grocery store, a manager would routinely close a register to balance the till, but also remove the coupons which were supposed to be compared to the computer system for accuracy, but mostly just got shoved into an envelope to send in to a regional place to sort by manufacturer and claim the $$$.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      4 months ago

      They did.

      When the distributor came to re-stock them, they’d settle up and either get reimbursed or would have a credit applied to their current/next shipment.

    • FatAdama@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      They gave it to the soda distributor who would stock the soda. Guy in the Pepsi or Coca Cola truck would take it.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Or, ya know, a bank transfer. Or check. I’m not imagining RC cola coming in with a bag full of cash.

    • DaGeek247@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      That seems like a “only at participating stores” sort of thing, wbere the local owner eats the loss in exchange for more people in the store.

      • bizarroland@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        It was actually more profitable for the business to accept the bottle cap because the vendors accepted the bottle caps back and gave them an additional eight cents.

        I’m sure that doesn’t seem like a lot but I mean hey you get an extra couple of bucks you make some kids happy everyone wins. Most businesses typically run on net 30 payments anyway so it’s not like it’s a huge ordeal for them to hold on to a couple of bottle caps for a week.