Tim Hortons says a technical error caused some customers using the restaurant's app to receive an incorrect award message during the first day of its Roll Up To Win contest.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Some Tim Hortons customers who were told they had won $10,000 from the coffee chain’s popular Roll Up To Win contest are now being notified that the prize message was a glitch.
The coffee and doughnut chain said Wednesday that for a few hours on Monday – the contest’s first day – a “small subset” of players were incorrectly notified that they’d won the company’s jackpot draw, a $10,000 daily prize meant to be awarded to one person per day.
The company added that it has offered a $50 gift card as compensation to players who received the erroneous award notice and is in the process of contacting the false winners “to express our regret for the disappointment caused by this error.”
Moncton paramedic Luc Masse was among those who thought they had won a big prize only to be informed of the technical issue.
He has yet to be offered a $50 gift card as an apology and feels it’s not a fair offer.
“A company like Tim Hortons is recognized as a nationwide brand that people love and cherish. Everybody waits every year for this, Roll up the Rim To Win … and then the first day this happens,” he said.
“It kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth, so to speak. Glitch or not, it shows that I won and I’d like them to honour it.”
Masse, who said he stops by Tims for a coffee most days he’s at work, believed he won a $10,000 American Express prepaid card on Monday, when he logged onto the app after reaching his paramedic base.
Tim Hortons’ annual spring prize contest – once called Roll up the Rim To Win – went fully digital in 2021, swapping out printed messages under rolled up coffee rims for scanning a loyalty card or app.
Customers now scan the Tim Hortons app on their smartphone at the time of purchase to earn a “roll” that could reveal a prize like “free doughnut,” or scan a loyalty card and later log into the contest’s website to see the rolls and prizes they’ve earned.
After Masse’s winner notification appeared, the app froze, but not before he managed to take a screenshot he sent to his wife, saying ‘How’s your Monday morning going? Here’s mine.”
His colleagues were just as excited.
“I was like, ‘oh my God, I think I won’ and then I showed them the message and they were like, ‘holy, I think you did.”
Masse contacted the Tim Hortons location he had bought his coffee at that day, who directed him to customer service number, where someone told me “it was a technical glitch and there’s nothing you could do.”
He’s disappointed with the response and admits it might affect how often he visits.
“Tim Horton is my coffee. It’s my go-to place for coffee, especially when I work, but honestly I haven’t been since Monday,” he said.
“Will I go again? It’s a possibility. How long in between? I have no idea.”
Sarah Smith, who works at Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville, N.S., was also misinformed of a win Monday after arriving at work.
“I just screamed and my girlfriend who works in the department with me came running over and a couple other of my girlfriends came running over and I was like, `guys, I can’t believe what I’m seeing,”' Smith recalled of the moment she saw the notification.
She rushed to call other loved ones and with her husband and began plotting how she’d use the money on a long-desired trip out west so their kids could spend time with some of his family.
But Wednesday evening while watching television, the couple learned of the problem.
“I just remember just feeling so on this emotional high and then just like crashing essentially,” she said.
The $50 gift card didn’t satisfy her because it has to be spent at that chain, “so they’re getting all that money back.”
She imagines she won’t revisit the chain again in the foreseeable future.
“My husband is a frequent coffee drinker from Tim Hortons, usually drinks anywhere from four to five coffees there a day and I usually drink one tea from there in the morning and I just avoided that this morning.”
The technical glitch Masse experienced comes after Tim Hortons reached a proposed settlement last year in multiple class action lawsuits alleging the restaurant’s mobile app violated customer privacy.
As a consolation, the restaurant offered a free coffee and doughnut to affected users.
– With files from Brett Bundale in Halifax