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So after buying a cup the other day, winning, tearing off the lip and redeeming, I had an immediately obvious idea on exploiting a glaring flaw of this system and I am absolutely dumbfounded no one has thought of/tried it yet.
I'm led either to believe everyone is clueless or there is some advanced security system that I am not aware of...
So I ask you intelligent people to posit what it may be, and what, if any, are the preventative measures?
Well I heard you could take your "Please Try Again" tabs to Country Style and get a free coffee there; but I'm guessing that's not what you were thinking of?
haha no, something more errr.... exploitive. more along the lines of what you would need to redeem your winning(s)...
Maybe if you had something that could print the same fonts as that under the rims, you could get some empty rims and just print your own prizes on them?
I'm pretty sure that the restaurant can only redeem certain prizes. If you win 10,000 dollars or whatever you actually have to go to the lottery and redeem your prize. That's when you really go through the rigamarole. If the rims are anything like stamps at all there is some ultraviolet ink on them to make it authentic.
...an ex-pat option:
Wow! I can't believe the place is still as much fun as I remember ;)
"ex-pat" option?
Like, pointing a gun at the teller? ;) That should work.Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
tee heeQuote:
Originally Posted by cpjust
^^ heh, I suppose that would be the most direct form of exploitation.
This is what I was refering too! Except after examing the entire cup and rim I could not find any unique ID and the rim was not large or robust enough to embed a chip... so I'm wondering if it is UV after all?Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteflags
However, when I redeemed my free coffee she merely gave the little scrap of rim I presented her a quick glance over and seconds later I was sipping on a mocha latte extra-grande. The rim is incredibly simple: red & white with a short message in basic font - and they barely change it over the years. Surely a simple print system could be setup to print on waxed-cardpaper for under a couple hundred dollars that would deceive even a scrutinizing glance.
Consider free coffee every year for the duration of promotion - it would surely outweigh the costs.
And yet there's absolutely not a single reference of anything like this ever being attempted or even mentioned before... I feel almost obliged now... :S
Yes, but add the expense of all the different hats and wigs you might also need. Coffeeshop employees are often vigilant.Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
I guess the risk is based on the number of Tim Horton's involved in your daily schedule.
Well since it's only about $1.23 for a medium coffee, I don't think it's really worth it. Especially since you can essentially get 2 coffees for the price of one if you take all your non-winning rims to Country Style for a free coffee.
They have better jelly-filled's at Country Style.Quote:
Originally Posted by cpjust
[aside] Canadians eat more donuts (and burn more gas) per capita that any other group of people in the world.
Even if it's not ultraviolet, they could ask you for a receipt, which seems simple enough to falsify, but I wonder how right I really am about that. The cash register would never agree.
I think a mocha XL is around $4? one per day would break even in about a month (although probably break the scales too...). Personally, I'm not much the coffee-drinker, but yeah, I'm extremely curious as to why no one has attempted this or something like it.
p.s. is country-style still doing that this year?
When you win a free coffee, does that include those expensive specialty coffees or just regular coffees?Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
I've never tried using the Tim Horton's rims to get a free coffee at Country Style, so I'm not sure if they still do it. You could always try it and see. I had to stop drinking coffee a while ago because it was just making me sweat like crazy in my ridiculously overheated office.
I had to quit because it was making inanimate objects yell at me, and I was having trouble sleeping more than a couple hours at a time, 2-3 tiems per day. And I twitched alot.
I wonder if they're doing the Roll up the Rim promotion for the handful of Tim Hortons in the U.S. or if it's only in Canada?
I know in the U.S. Tim Hortons, their cup sizes are 1 size bigger than in Canada, so it's probably not worth it to print up special cups just for the few Tim Hortons in the U.S.
Yes but the inner bottom of the cup is actually an inch higher. Americans are slightly harder to fool and hence that much more deceptive, as has been widely recognized.Quote:
Originally Posted by cpjust
Double chocolate timbits are certainly the ONLY thing to miss about T.O. And this one dollar pizza place on the Danforth.
Maybe because some of us still have principle's? You know, a *working* conscience.Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
What a concept, eh? :)
Doesn't stop it people from trying to cheat on the lottery tickets, clearly.
Yep! I asked for another coffee, and she said I could have anything; any size.... I was left a bit dumbfounded, trying to think of a good way to say "give me your most expensive coffee" :PQuote:
Originally Posted by cpjust
I think U.S. locations are included in the deal.. I read somewhere about misgivings over US winners.
No doubt, most of us here do... but there are far too many without who have exploited worse for less...Quote:
Originally Posted by Adak
I wonder if I were to contact Tim's - would they even care?... or maybe it's best just to steer clear of their lawyers.
Possibly because they are all in Buffalo, which is very economically depressed, so those people may already be doing this.Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
>However, when I redeemed my free coffee she merely gave the little scrap of rim I presented her a quick glance
When I redeem mine they don't even look at it, they just hold out a cup full of them and ask me to drop it in. Then they say, "oh, what was it that you won?" after I order a coffee and snack.
I'm pretty sure I could take a "Please play again" cup and redeem it for a coffee without them even realizing.
What would you do? Sell the faked winning rims on eBay? I don't get it. There's not way to cash in your "free" coffees for, say, cash equivalents to retire on.
Since no one has seen a substantial winning rim, I would guess that they would have some authentication number for such prizes as well.
I should also inform people here that I have bought a few "Rimrollers" from Lee Valley Tools:
http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page....&cat=4,54&ap=1
Yes I know it's silly, and several of my coworkers who must have ape thumbs don't need one, but several other people were amazed and astounded. So I got a few for the enlightened who could appreciate a little gizmo. It's made in Canada for a change.
It contains two metal blades inside the plastic clamp. So it's less chincy than I expected.
There's definitely no way they could have authentication on the smaller prizes: as Perspective points out, most people just present scraps - not even authentic-able other than by eye.
Selling it on ebay would just compromise the operation. The incentive is more along the lines of the "free coffee for a year" prize. There's no cash equivalent, but the prize itself might be enticing enough to invest in producing fake rims (net cost probably works out to less than $100).
Haha, I've seen those, a co-worker brought one in too. Personally, I just use good ol' enamel.
wow, whats next, a machien to take a crap for you, I mean how lazy, or digital strength challenged, do you have to be to need a rim roller...
They're actually rolled pretty tight. I usually have to squish the cup together to unroll it.Quote:
or digital strength challenged,