The extra nugget is not yours

I’ve ordered the 10-piece McDonald's Chicken McNugget box hundreds of times—and everyone who’s ever ordered it knows a little secret 🍗:

There are exactly 2 outcomes when you place an order for a 10 pc McNugget:

1. You get precisely 10, or
2. You hit the jackpot: you erroneously get 11.

Now, here’s my question: has anyone ever returned the extra McNugget?

While technically that’s the “fair” thing to do, there’s a well-understood rule in American consumerism: if a company accidentally does something to your benefit, the cost of that accident falls on the company, and the benefits inure to the consumer.

That’s no longer how it works in credit transactions.

“𝗘𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁” terms in credit transactions require lenders to repay funds that are accidentally paid to them under the debt. Born from a 2021 court case in which lenders refused to return funds mistakenly sent to them under a loan, these terms codify a well-known norm in lending markets that starkly differs from American retail: lenders don’t get to benefit from accidents in the same way that consumers do—in other words, if you pay for 10 McNuggets, you get exactly 10, every time.

Noetica's data shows Erroneous Payment terms have become extremely common in credit transactions since 2021—of relevant publicly-filed deals, 85% included the term in Q3 ’24, with 87% including such term in Q3 ’23.

Message me if you’d like access to the excel with deal data on Erroneous Payment terms.