Regina man wrongly told he had won a boat in Tim Hortons contest

But the company said that was not the case, blaming a technical error and telling people to disregard previous communications.

Regina’s Dallas Kalaman was one of the people who thought they had won the prize — a 2024 Tracker Targa 18 WT boat and trailer — after receiving a loyalty points email from the company.

“We love winning our free coffees and maybe there’s a rare occasion where you actually win something major like a boat,” Kalaman said Thursday. “We’re all excited and looking forward to it and then, BAM, we get an email a few hours later indicating it was just an accident and forget it ever happened.

“(There was) no compensation, no nothing. Just pretend from a multi-billion-dollar organization that their mess-up (was due to) them (not) doing their own fail-safe checks before sending (and) we have to take the brunt end of their failure. It is a complete disappointment, in my opinion, when it comes to Tim Hortons.”

Kalaman said he did all the checks to make sure it had come from the right source, and when it had all checked out, he was ecstatic.

But in an email sent to customers and to 980 CJME, the company said: “We’re reaching out to let you know that technical errors may have resulted in incorrect information about rolls or prizes being included in your Roll Up to Win recap email which you received on April 17, 2024. Please disregard the content of that email.

“Unfortunately, some prizes that you did not win may have been included in the recap email you received. If this was the case, today’s email does not mean that you won those prizes. Any prizes you won in the contest would have been revealed instantly when you played Roll Up to Win and any large value prizes would have had a further verification process. The recap email may have also had incorrect information about the number of rolls you earned this year.

“We know that the millions of prizes won in our contest were distributed to winners accurately and as per our contest rules. The issue we are addressing in this email is solely related to the accuracy of the recap email from today, which in some cases may not have been correct. We apologize for the frustration this has caused and for not living up to our high standards of providing an exceptional guest experience.”

Media reports have indicated people across the country have got the same sort of response after getting an email they had won.

Kalaman reached out to Tim Hortons customer service, which responded with the same email — and that left him feeling frustrated.

“It’s just really disappointing to see the lack of their PR department handling this type of issue correctly and the complete fail and other disrespect I feel the company has done as a whole,” Kalaman said. “It’s terrible.

“(There was) no compensation — not even free coffee … They’ve basically told everybody to ignore their mess-up and pretend it never happened with no compensation at all.”

He said this is something he feels a company like Tim Hortons should do better when it comes to treating their customers with respect.

“There have been multiple people who have gone through the same thing. The blanket message is all the same, the disrespect from Tim Hortons is all the same, the lack of empathy in handling (the issue) in a proper way has been all the same and these are all loyal — or former loyal — Tim Hortons reward members,” Kalaman said.

“I would like to see them focusing more on correcting this error instead of expecting a blanket message saying, ‘Sorry, we’ve messed up. Forget it ever happened.’ I believe they can do a lot more whether it be gift cards (or) a free coffee. There is something they can do to correct this issue.”