A subset of Tim's Roll up The Rim players recently had their lives changed for just a moment, and then immediately snatched away after receiving a false winner's announcement.

Earlier this week, just as the annual contest kicked off, a group of customers across the country received a message while playing the game that they'd won a $10,000 gift card from VISA or American Express.

Definitely not a small amount of money, these players were jumping for joy as they thought about how the cash could change their lives for the better. 

But, unfortunately, this was a massive error and none of these players had actually won a penny.

"For a few hours on Monday morning, a technical error caused an issue for a small subset of Roll Up To Win players. They were shown an incorrect award message for a prize that is meant to be awarded once per day to one person in our jackpot draw,” said Tim Horton's.

Tim's would not confirm the exact number of clients who received this false positive. 

@TimHortons So your Roll Up The Rim contest is just a fucking scam? People win $10,000 and you conveniently say it was an error? And then you offer them a $50 gift card. Fuck you guys, you’re pure garbage and I hope you go bankrupt.

— Willie Mays Hayes (@SolarWarden31) March 9, 2023

This "small subset" group of false winners has sent off a few angry messages on social media, slamming Tim's for the error and their response.

People received notifications on the Tim Horton’s Roll Up The Rim app saying they won a $10K Visa gift card. To make matters worse, to make up for the error they were given Tim Horton’s gift cards.

— Brian George (@BrianGeorgeHFX) March 9, 2023

These messages allege the chain sent these players a $50 Tim's gift card as an apology. Multiple articles from other media outlets who spoke directly to these clients also back up these claims.

However, Tim's did not provide a solid answer on how they remedied this mistake, avoiding the question entirely when responding to blogTO's question. 

Did you hear a trucker won 10,000 on roll up the rim and they said it was an error and gave the guy 50 buck. What the hell is with that. they should have to give it to them. its their error and the rest of us pay for our errors pic.twitter.com/nLqXXm7KSE

— Soozie (@besssnt) March 8, 2023

They did indicate the company is working on speaking with the false winners, writing "we're already in contact with some of the impacted guests to express our regret for the disappointment caused by this error."

Winner, winner!
Nicole Kirk of Hamilton won $10,000 from Tim Hortons in their contest that rolled out Monday.
Wait: it was all a mistake for her and others. Company apologized and offered $50. I’m brewing this consumer story for 5:30/6 on @globalnewsto with @ACarterglobal. pic.twitter.com/YeaSeclzmw

— 𝚂𝚎á𝚗 𝙾’𝚂𝚑𝚎𝚊 Global News (@ConsumerSOS) March 8, 2023

On just the first day of the contest alone, Monday, March 6, the coffee chain says over 450,000 prizes were awarded to Canadians.