CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company behind last week’s massive computer crash, offered $10 Uber Eats gift cards to its affected partners and teammates for their troubles. But Uber flagged the code that was circulating as fraud, due to the high-usage rates, so people couldn’t get their discounts, a CrowdStrike spokesperson said.
TechCrunch first reported news of the codes and rounded up posts from some social media users who posted saying they couldn’t redeem their offers.
CrowdStrike sent out the email on Tuesday offering the gift card to its partners and teammates who have been helping customers to cover their “next cup of coffee or late-night snack,” due to “the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused.” One X user said the email was sent by Daniel Bernard, the company’s chief business officer.
In a statement, Crowdstrike said that the company “did not send gift cards to customers or clients. We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high-usage rates.”
All of this comes after the cybersecurity firm sent out an errant software update that caused worldwide disruption on Friday. The update, affecting about 8.5 million Microsoft Windows users, led to scores of flights being delayed or canceled and paused work at businesses ranging from financial institutions to hospitals.
CrowdStrike said Wednesday that a software bug in its quality-control system caused the faulty software update.