Woman claims Chick-fil-A is running a scheme straight out of Office Space, and the math is hard to ignore

A woman from Atlanta thinks she has figured out how Chick-fil-A might be making extra money without people noticing. Her theory has gone viral on TikTok and started a big conversation about how fast food chains set their prices.

According to Bro Bible, the woman, who goes by J on TikTok, posted a video that has been watched almost 430,000 times. She said she was going to order breakfast through the Chick-fil-A app but changed her mind and went to the drive-thru instead. When she got there, her order cost $7.38. But when she checked the app later, she saw the same order would have been 5 cents cheaper.

That tiny difference made her think about something bigger. She says Chick-fil-A might be running a scheme straight out of Office Space, a movie from 1999 where office workers steal money by taking small amounts from lots of transactions. The 1995 movie Hackers had a similar story. People usually call this trick “salami slicing” because you take such thin slices that nobody notices.

A few pennies here and there can turn into serious cash

J explained her thinking by talking about how small amounts add up over time. She said most people think a 50-cent raise is not much money. But if you do the math, that comes out to more than $1,000 in a year. She thinks restaurants could use the same idea to make a lot of money.

If a Chick-fil-A location adds 5 cents to every order and serves 500 people each day, that money grows fast. “What if they just charge everybody 5 cents? They get millions of dollars. They get millions of dollars, right?” she said in her video.

A lot of people who watched her video agreed with her. One person named Big Carm pointed out, “And ‘donations’ are tax write offs.”

Another user, HeyItsALauren, wrote, “And if you complain about pennies people call you broke. THEY’RE MY PENNIES!!!” A third person named Zenobia raised similar concerns about Apple, saying, “This is Apple with that suspicious 2.99 dollar charge!! I’m telling yall Apple getting the money!” Others have discovered their own money-saving hacks at major retailers that help stretch their budgets.

But there are normal reasons why prices might be different between the app and the store. About three years ago, someone asked the same question about Chick-fil-A on Reddit. People who answered said things like delivery fees or old prices that have not been updated yet could explain it. Someone else said it might just be a mistake.

Chick-fil-A says on its website that prices can be different at different locations. The company owns all the buildings, but different people pay to run each restaurant. This means each location can set its own prices. While some customers look for ways to save money on their fast food orders, others are watching closely to see if companies are charging them more than they should.

If a company really was changing prices to avoid paying taxes or trick customers, that would be against the law. Chick-fil-A has not said anything about what J is claiming.