A Toronto man walked out of a liquor store with 24 free bottles of wine after a computer glitch allowed him to order the alcohol at no cost.
Mohammed Asaduallah said that he routinely checks a Facebook group for sales and new arrivals at the LCBO and last month noticed that a box of six bottles of red wine were being sold for $0.
“Everyone's speculating and I'm just like, why don't I just order it and see what happens.”
Asaduallah told CTV News Toronto that he was able to buy 24 bottles of the $0 wine and then added on a bottle of whisky to meet the minimum purchase requirements.
“I was like, this is working. I'm not getting any error so far,” he said. “It went through and I was like, no way this went through it. This is the LCBO, right, like this can't happen.”
When Asaduallah received numerous confirmation emails regarding his order, with the 24 bottles of wine included, he said he was “confused and excited and just unsure of what's really happening.”
He decided to see the process through and went to the LCBO to pick up his order last week, fully expecting to be turned away at the door. He said that when he arrived, the customer service representative disappeared into the back room.
Asaduallah said he thought he may be in trouble, but the representative returned with his product, only saying it was a “large order” and he needed assistance.
“The whole time I’m trying to keep it cool. Try not to sound overly excited.”
Asaduallah walked out of the store with his boxes of alcohol and made it all the way to his car when he realized that the wine was not the one he ordered.
He decided to go back into store to see if they would fix the order.
“I have no idea where my head was at, but I was trying to see where this goes.”
At that point, Asaduallah said the employee noticed he had paid $0 for the wine and a manager is called.
“As that whole thing is happening, in my head I was like, yeah, I should have never walked back into the store.”
Asaduallah was told that he had been given the wrong order and he would have to leave the wine at the store, but after a lot of back-and-forth with the manager and an e-commerce representative, he was eventually allowed to leave with the original wine in his possession.
“I am just like shocked that all of this kind of just worked out,” he said. “Just as soon as I get on the road, I'm just like, … where did I even get this courage?”
A spokesperson for the LCBO confirmed that the no-cost wine was caused by a glitch on their website that has since been fixed.
“While there are some inaccuracies in Mr. Asaduallah's account of our attempts to resolve the situation, we take full responsibility for the error and have worked to ensure that it will not happen again.”
As for Asaduallah, he says he has given away three bottles of the wine so far.
“It's been like, drink one, gift one.”
