'Bad taste in your mouth': Regina man mistakenly told he won $50K boat through Roll up the Rim

Chris Ross was pleasantly surprised when Tim Hortons sent him an email summarizing his ‘Roll up the Rim’ winnings for the season. The email highlighted that Ross had won a boat valued at over $50,000.

“I looked up the boat online and already started thinking in my head like how fun it would be and stuff,” he told CTV News

However, the excitement was short lived as Ross began hearing of others who had been mistakenly told they had won the same prize.

After calling the company, he was told to keep an eye on his inbox.

“Sure enough later in the day I got an email saying it was just a mishap. A mistake on their end, an error, and to please disregard that email,” Ross explained.

Turns out, Ross was one of several who had received false information regarding Roll Up The Rim winnings.

A statement from Tim Hortons read:

“We developed a Roll Up To Win recap email message with the best intentions of giving our guests a fun overview of their 2024 play history. Unfortunately there was a human error that resulted in some guests receiving some incorrect information in their recap message.”

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CTV News spoke with the Executive Director of the Consumer Council of Canada, Ken Whitehurst, who explained that since switching from rolling up the physical rim of a coffee cup to an online system – there’s been a disconnect between customers and the franchise.

“It is notable that so many consumers see their business with Tim Hortons as a relationship. The rewards aren’t seen as so much as just a windfall as a feature of a larger relationship paid for through their purchases,” he said.

“Quite obviously, they don’t see this program as just a gift, accidentally miss delivered. Tim’s has fostered this level of relationship itself. It had an ‘analog’ model for doing this in the past that clearly worked better.”

Tim Hortons corrected the mistake by emailing customers and explaining that there was an error. However, for Ross, it’s put a damper on his daily coffee run.

“At the end of the day, I feel like there’s gotta be some resolution right? Because you know, to get your hopes up and to give something to you and then take it away it just doesn’t feel good about the brand, ya know?” Ross expressed.

“Makes the coffee taste … [well] it puts a bad taste in your mouth.”

As for what’s next, Ross said he’ll likely be heading to a competitor for the foreseeable future.