Jilted jackpot winners call out Timmy’s Roll Up to Win

A couple from Tillsonburg, Ont. is brimming with anger after Tim Hortons refused to pay out their $10,000 winning prize in the spring Roll Up To Win contest.

On Monday, Jeremy McDougall bought a coffee at the Tim Hortons on Broadway Street in Tillsonburg.

He scanned the Timmy’s app and received a message saying he won a $10,000 pre-paid American Express card.

“We were kind of in disbelief,” said McDougall. “We got our stuff together and came down to the store itself. Took the screen shot to the manager, and showed her and asked her if it was what I thought it was, and she said ‘yeah congratulations,’ and everybody started clapping and we did a big ‘whoo!’ and walked out the door.”

But it wasn’t to be.

McDougall reached out to Tim Horton’s to claim his prize money, but received a message saying the win was a mistake caused by a technical glitch. Instead, the company offered a $50 dollar gift card.

“I was pretty upset,” explained McDougall. “I didn’t take much time, so I forwarded the email right back to them. I was not interested in a 50 dollar Tim card. I don’t plan to spend any money at Tim Hortons anymore.”Screenshots of a message from Tim Hortons giving Jeremy McDougall a $10,000 prize, and a screenshot of an email from Tim Hortons admitting their mistake. (Source: Jeremy McDougall)

McDougall’s wife, Sarah Croft, told CTV News she had recently lost her job and was looking forward to the windfall. That made the news even more upsetting.

“Complete disappointment, like I got kicked in the teeth or something,” said Croft. “I was like, ‘what?’ And at first when I read it, I thought it said 500. And even that, I was like ‘oh a 500 dollar gift card. What?’ And then I had to look again. It was 50. I thought, ‘yeah’ I was not happy.”

Formerly known as Roll Up the Rim to Win, the contest has been a Canadian pastime for decades. It went fully digital in 2021, swapping out the printed version for an app or a Tim Hortons rewards card.

In a statement to CTV News, Tim Hortons said the glitch occurred on Monday morning and lasted a few hours.

“A technical error caused an issue for a small subset of Roll Up To Win players,” the statement read.

Tim Hortons said it was an incorrect award message for a prize that is meant to be awarded once per day to one person in the jackpot draw.

“We're already in contact with some of the impacted guests to express our regret for the disappointment caused by this error,” the company said.

Jeremy McDougall and Sarah Croft on March 9, 2023. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)

It’s not clear how many customers were told they were winners, but stories from jilted Roll Up winners have been emerging from across the country.

Hamed Aghankani, a marketing professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said the coffee chain should consider biting the bullet, and paying out the winnings.

“Sometimes it might just be easier to just pay people the amount that’s promised, and that actually just shows the sincere apology,” said Aghankani.

In the meantime, McDougall and Croft said they have consulted a lawyer to find out what their legal options are.

“We won, that’s the final thing of it all, we won,” said Croft, defiantly.