Several UAE residents were briefly told they had won a flight voucher this week, only to receive a follow-up message hours later admitting the first email had been sent by mistake.
The buy-now-pay-later firm Tabby emailed customers a celebratory note headlined “You won an Emirates voucher!” telling recipients they were among the “lucky” winners of an AED 5,000 Emirates flight voucher tied to a Tabby Visa Card raffle. The message urged them to follow steps to claim the prize.
A second email arrived later the same day with the subject line “We made a mistake with our last email.” In it, Tabby said the earlier notification “was sent in error” and apologised, acknowledging how it feels “to be told good news and then have it taken back.” The company said it took “full responsibility for getting your hopes up.”
The follow-up sought to reassure customers who had already acted on the first email. Tabby said anyone who had entered their delivery details after receiving the erroneous message did not need to do anything, stating that the information “has not been used for anything” and that its team was ensuring it would be “handled and deleted properly.” The company added that it was reviewing how the mistake happened to prevent a recurrence.
The raffle itself is genuine. Under Tabby’s published terms, the Emirates Flight Voucher Raffle offered UAE-based Tabby Card holders the chance to win a voucher worth AED 5,000, with entries earned by spending a minimum of AED 500 on the card. The promotion ran from 20 May to 21 June 2026, with winners drawn at random and contacted within ten days of the period closing. The voucher is non-transferable, non-encashable, and must be redeemed in person at designated Emirates collection points across the Emirates.
Tabby, a Dubai-headquartered fintech and one of the region’s largest buy-now-pay-later providers, has not issued a public statement beyond the corrective email seen by recipients. The erroneous notice did not specify a prize-collection deadline or a winner reference number, and it remains unclear how many customers received it.
Residents who receive unexpected prize notifications are generally advised to verify them against official channels before sharing personal information, as raffle-themed messages are a recurring vector for fraud in the UAE. In this case, however, the apology came directly from the same verified sender, framing the episode as an internal error rather than an external scam.
