UK beer company pulls "free beer" April Fool's prank, makes everyone mad
Turns out that people don't like thinking they've won free beer for life when they haven't
Every April 1st, the world is flooded with bad jokes. At best, we get easy-to-ignore pranks like Krispy Kreme saying it’s going to change its name. At worst, we get a K-pop star lying to his adoring fans that he contracted COVID, or an official government channel cracking wise about interfering with foreign elections on Facebook.
Somewhere in between are stunts like the false promise of free beer for life from UK beer subscription site Bier Company.
Bier, as Newsweek explains, decided to invite the wrath of customers by sending out text messages and emails with “URGENT” in the subject line and the exciting (untrue) news that the reader was “this month’s winner of free beer for life.” The recipients, livers shivering with excitement, were told to click on a link and input a special promotional code to get their prize just before learning that the whole thing was a prank. Oh, and that by following the prize instructions they’ve also been signed up for a Bier subscription for £22.95 a month.
Unsurprisingly, those who tried to claim their nonexistent prize weren’t too happy with how the joke played out, especially when they learned that canceling the unwanted subscription is such an opaque process that one woman contacted by Newsweek said she was in touch with her bank to stop payment.