Woolworths tells 79,000 they won a prize, then rescinds it (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 6 months ago by Dave@lemmy.nz to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Woolworths has apologised to thousands of customers after mistakenly telling about 79,000 people they had won a competition.

The email for the Big Night In prize was meant to be sent to about 1000 winning customers.

Instead, 79,000 extra so-called winners were sent the same email - awarding them 4000 points towards the supermarket's Everyday Rewards card system, which would equal $30 worth of groceries.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago

They should be legally required to pay out.

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Not sure about a legal requirement for a clear human error type mistake.

That being said... The prize was the point equivalent of $30 of groceries. They should just acknowledge the issue, and say that they're letting people keep the points anyway. Just shift it to being an unexpected $2.3M advertising campaign. I'm sure they'd get more publicity out of that than actually spending the money on traditional advertising nowadays.