Tim Hortons Grappling with Bitter Boaters Over 'Roll Up The Win' Lawsuit

Photo - Eric Mclean / Unsplash

In April 2024, Tim Hortons mistakenly e-mailed participants in the popular 'Roll Up The Rim' game telling them they'd won a boat.

Prospective boaters checked their cups. Or in this case, their mobile apps and their email inboxes.

In 2024 during the popular contest, which no longer involves unfurling the rim of a cup and is now is played strictly online, Tim Hortons e-mailed thousands of participants across Canada telling them they'd won a Tracker Targa 18 WT fishing boat complete with trailer. The package was valued at about $65,000 Cdn.

Tim Hortons quickly backtracked and released a statement saying there was a technical error and that those who received the e-mail were unfortunately not winners.

The company also sent a letter to CBC which stated: "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," the letter read. "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."

"We apologize for the frustration this has caused and for not living up to our high standards."

The outcry was quick and immediate, with players who'd received the email going from ecstatic boat captains to confused land lubbers.

One player, Darren Stewart-Jones of Hamilton, told CBC, "I thought, 'Wow, this could be really awesome.'"

But within an hour, a friend in nearby Brampton called and told him the same shocking story -- she'd also won a boat.

"That's when I clued in and thought, 'I think this is a huge mess-up," he told CBC.

Last week, a Superior Court judge approved a class action lawsuit on behalf of a Montreal law firm, but the decision has only generated more criticism.

Despite the lawsuit gaining class action status, it was only approved for residents of Quebec.

That means others who received the e-mail in Newfoundland, Alberta, Ontario, and elsewhere cannot participate.

CBC spoke to multiple residents outside Quebec who believed they won a boat, and they feel the Canadian coffee institution hasn't done enough to make amends.

Ottawa resident Michel Laveillee, a devoted Tim's customer who visits two or three times a day, was one of many who feels deceived.

"[There were] tears of joy," he told CBC. "And after that came the tears of deception."

"If buy a coffee on the Quebec side [of the Ottawa River], and then you play Roll Up the Rim and win in Ontario, you're a winner no matter what," he told CBC, saying he often gets coffee in nearby Gatineau, Quebec.

The law firm, LPC Advocats, says as many as 500,00 Canadians may have received the e-mail. They had hoped to include all Canadians in the suit who received the message, but a judge ruled in June that only Quebec residents can be included due to the province's stronger consumer protection laws.

That leaves thousands of potential boat captains without a path to a vessel they believe they won.

The LPC Advocats website has published all the documents related to the case, with their suit titled "Tim Hortons, Where's My Boat?"

Joey Zukran, who owns the law firm, told CBC that under the Quebec Consumer Protection Act, a company cannot claim something was a "mistake" as a means to void a legally binding contract. Zukran believes players who participated in the Roll Up The Rim contest entered a legal contract when they joined the popular promotion and used the mobile app.

"It's not the consumer that's going to bear the responsibility of that error," Zukran told CBC. "It's the merchant. And that is the message that the court is sending loud and clear by way of this judgement." 

Meanwhile, players like Leveillee and others from outside Quebec are looking to pursue recourse some other way.

"These big boys don't care about good old Canadians that get up in the morning [and] go to work," he said. "We're just regular citizens, we're not lawyers ... but we're on a roll. We're going to do something about it," Leviellee told CBC.

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