Imagine receiving a notification that you’ve won $10,000 from Tim Horton’s – only to be told later that it was a glitch.

The Canadian coffee chain said on Wednesday that there had been an issue with winner notifications for this year’s edition of the popular Roll Up To Win contest which started on Monday. The contest added a daily jackpot of $10,000 meant to be awarded to one person per day.

On Monday, according to the company, a “small subset” of participants were mistakenly sent a notification that they’d won that day’s jackpot prize. The participants were then sent an apology and a … $50 gift card … that can only be spent at Tims.

This isn’t the first time people were left dumbfounded by the coffee chain this week. Many Canadians are still confused about the mechanics of the contest. The contest, which was previously called Roll Up the Rim to Win, has gone digital since 2021. 

When it used to ask participants to roll up the rim of their cups for printed messages indicating the prize they won, participants now need to “earn digital rolls” by using the physical rewards card or the Tims app to reveal if they’ve won a prize.

… only to be told later that it’s just a $50 gift card. 

It’s definitely not been a good start for this year’s contest, but the consolation prize of $50 is already, sadly, somewhat generous for the chain. In August last year, it proposed to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of stealing user information with a coffee and a doughnut.

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