Don't Pick Up the Phone

A bit of a tough watch, but well worth seeing all the same. Two things that stuck me with this horrible saga is, apart from the terrible situation the employees found themselves in, the police who investigated the guy, arrested him with rather weak evidence that certainly was not 'beyond reasonable doubt'. We could see that as soon as they arrested him, it would be a long shot. They should have identified him and followed him to ensure that his purchase of phone cards was not just a coincidence with the call times.

The second thing that strikes me is the total obedience to authority figures that Americans seem to have (maybe this id due to the amount of police shootings there are?). Granted it's a cultural thing, but no way in hell in my country, would a manager (male or female) strip search a young female (in the back office) because a 'policeman' on the phone tells them too!

Literally unbelievable. Just feel for the young ladies caught up in this.

Wasn't too hooked on watching this at first. I was thinking what's the worst that could happen from a prank phone call? The story is incredibly sad and dark. The fact that this person did this with the idea that it wouldn't come back to them is horrible and disturbing.

The aftermath is basically a blame game and it gets pretty toxic. It all started with one individual's cruelty snowballing into innocent victims and their supervisors not being able to distinguish right from wrong. The domino effect leaves some with traumatic experiences and ruins the lives of suckers who do not think twice.

I always love Netflix docs, and while this is no exception, it breaks my heart to watch people being preyed on.

I've a had a lot of people tell me I'm too harsh on the people who fell for this scam...then they go on to say that "I would have fallen for it ...being intimidated by a cop on the phone."

Half-right: I may have started out believing it, but as soon as they started a strip search I would have said "get down here and do it yourself."

It's a very well done documentary, and MacDonalds does deserve a huge share of the blame for this, but that Boston cop made a really stupid tactical error (you'll see.)

Either way, very sad that there are people this stupid and this irresponsible and they are largely to blame for this whole sordid affair.

The "I was brought up to respect authority" excuse doesn't work here, not when the person is on the phone and not a physical threat.

The final verdict of the perp was a fitting way to tell the people of this country: smarten up, morons or else worse will happen.

I hate to admit that when I first heard this story in passing years ago I found the unbelievable gullibility hilarious. I didn't know all the details and hadn't heard the human stories.

This sick, twisted person preyed upon people's respect for authority (which shouldn't be a bad thing) as well as their desire to help and prove their honesty.

I am a pretty cynical person and I went in thinking I would end up laughing at these people. It truly isn't funny.

The perpetrator should spend the rest of his life doing serious hard time. A prank isn't funny unless no one is hurt. I can't believe McDonald's didn't do more to warn managers and employees. That defense attorney is almost as bad as the perpetrator.

Kudos to the dedicated cops determined to crack this case.

The documentary was difficult to watch because of the content, but many of the reviews here are scoring it low because of the content the documentary presented rather than the way they presented it. If you aren't fascinated by the events, don't watch, but scoring a documentary low because you can't believe how stupid people can be is pretty stupid, as well. The documentary was well made. It could be slow at times, but overall, it did a great job presenting the information from the cases and balancing that info with true victims' statements. It's hard to believe that people could be so gullible and how compliant people can be when an authority figure is doing the instructing.