The FreeNow taxi service has apologised for 'any confusion or inconvenience caused'.

A message popped up on the app encouraging users to solve a riddle in order to win €200 worth of vouchers.

It read: "I'm made of snow but never feel the cold. The answer to this riddle is a promo code worth €200 towards your next 10 trips."

As FreeNow customers flocked to the app to input the word "snowman" and then appeared to have the vouchers added to their account, it all seemed too good to be true.

Sadly though, it was - with app users subsequently reporting that the vouchers had since been removed from their FreeNow accounts.

Many took to Twitter to joke about the situation and wonder what exactly was going on at the taxi service (you can read some of those tweets right here).

And now we have an answer, as FreeNow has issued a statement to JOE apologising for "any confusion or inconvenience" and explaining what exactly happened.

According to the taxi service, only the first 100 users who solved the riddle were meant to get vouchers.

However, a technical issue resulted in vouchers being issued beyond this number of winners.

As such, vouchers allocated to anyone outside those first 100 people have since been retracted.

FreeNow, however, has also said that every person who submitted a correct answer but incorrectly received a voucher will be automatically entered into an "exclusive new raffle" to potentially win more vouchers.

You can read FreeNow's statement in full below:

"Earlier today, FreeNow launched a passenger raffle offering FreeNow vouchers to the first 100 users who solved an in-app Christmas riddle.

"Unfortunately, there was a technical issue with the raffle on the app this morning and vouchers were issued beyond the first 100 winners.

"We express our sincere apologies for any confusion or inconvenience caused to passengers as a result of this technical issue which has since been resolved.

"In line with the terms and conditions of our raffle, the first 100 raffle winners will all receive their prize vouchers. Vouchers allocated to anyone outside this group due to the technical issue were retracted.

"Any passengers who submitted the correct answer to our raffle today and were incorrectly allocated vouchers, will now be automatically entered into an exclusive new raffle which we are launching this afternoon with a prize fund of 20,000 euro worth of FreeNow vouchers, ranging from 5 euro to 1,000 euro."

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