Tim Hortons says 'technical errors' falsely told people they won $55K boat in Roll Up To Win promo

A technical error by Tim Hortons led coffee drinkers across Canada to falsely believe they had won a $55,000 boat as part of the franchise's Roll Up To Win promotion.

It's unclear how many people were impacted, but the chain told CBC Hamilton in an email it was an "unfor‐ tunate error" and some cus‐ tomers were sent an email with incorrect information.

Darren Stewart-Jones of Hamilton said he opened an email on Wednesday morn‐ ing from Tim Hortons that re‐ capped all the prizes he won this year and it included one he didn't recognize: a 2024 Tracker Targa 18 WT boat and trailer, which retails for $39,995 US (about $55,000 Cdn) - the only one available to participants.

"I thought, 'Wow, this could be really awesome,'" Stewart-Jones told CBC News in a phone interview.

But his initial burst of ex‐ citement turned into ques‐ tions as he scrolled through his emails to find out when he'd won the boat.

He said he'd always re‐ ceived emails after winning past prizes.

Within an hour, he got a call from a friend in Bramp‐ ton, Ont., who said she also won a boat.

"That's when I clued in and thought, 'I think this is a huge mess-up,'" StewartJones said.

Chris Rivet, from Edmon‐ ton, had the same experi‐ ence.

"I went from being a win‐ ner to a loser," Rivet said.

Participants considering lawsuits

Alanna O'Hoski of Hamilton said she received the email and spent part of the day on hold waiting for an answer from Tim Hortons.

"With how tight things are nowadays, it was definitely a gut punch," she said in a message to CBC News. "A lot of people, myself included, ... thought they won something of potential life-changing val‐ ue."

Tim Hortons sent cus‐ tomers an email with instruc‐ tions to "disregard" the recap email they received, saying "technical errors" may have allowed for some prizes they didn't win to end up in the re‐ cap email.

"We apologize for the frustration this has caused and for not living up to our high standards of providing an exceptional guest experi‐ ence," read the letter, which

Tim Hortons shared with CBC.

Rivet said he has filed a complaint with the Competi‐ tion Bureau of Canada and is considering filing a lawsuit.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook group formed with over 200 people ex‐ pressing outrage about the mistake and threatening to file lawsuits.

"NOPE. Not taking this as an answer!! Two words: CLASS ACTION," read a post from Christiane Marie.

"I want my boat!" read an‐ other post, from Beau John‐ son.

Just over a year ago, the Tim Hortons app mistakenly informed users they'd won $10,000.

"This is a repeated pattern of behaviour and simply say‐ ing it's a technical issue just goes to show Tim Hortons didn't do its due diligence,"

Rivet said.

"It doesn't exclude them from the harm they've caused."

After the last mishap, Hamed Aghakhani, associate professor of marketing at Dalhousie University's Rowe School of Business, told CBC News the coffee chain's ter‐ ms and conditions likely pro‐ tect the company in case of an issue like this.

But he also said if the is‐ sue remains unresolved, it would erode the public's con‐ fidence in the brand over time.