Supermarket staff and shoppers in the UK have been accused of opening Cadbury Creme Egg wrappers in an attempt to win cash prizes.
The promotion is available in Ireland as well as the UK - with chocolate lovers on this side of the water offered the chance to win €1000 if they uncover one of 13 limited edition white chocolate Creme Eggs.
There are also 65 white eggs worth €100 each on the shelves.
There are even more eggs on offer in the UK with a prize of £1000 on offer - as well as a one-of-a-kind £2000 egg.
The eggs are packaged in the same foil wrapping as their milk chocolate counterparts - with a special phone number printed inside which winners need to call claim their prize.
The promotion has already captured the imagination of sweet-toothed treasure hunters - even with three long months to go until Easter Sunday.
However chocolate-lovers in the UK have been reporting an unforeseen - and rather un-appetising - downside to the competition.
Angry customers have been contacting Cadbury to complain that Creme Eggs had already been opened in-store when they went in to buy some.
Blogger George Kimm said:
Nice to see that ALL the #CremeEggs in @sainsburys have been opened #whitecremeegg
— George Kimm (@GeorgeKimm) January 5, 2018
Others also weighed in with their concerns & observations:
this white creme egg thing just means every single creme egg has been unwrapped and touched by some randoms in tesco pic.twitter.com/1mLwXLfKOc
— jeanie (@hebejean) January 4, 2018
This will be the first year that I will not be eating any @CadburyUK Creme Eggs. Tried to buy some today and all the packets in Tesco (about 30 of them) had been opened, presumably by people wanting to see if any of the boxes had the prize winning white eggs in them.
— 4 Chords No Net (@4ChordsNoNet) January 5, 2018
Tesco has insisted there is no evidence of eggs being unwrapped, while both Co-op and Sainsbury's have refused to comment.
The white Creme Eggs will be on shelves until Easter Sunday 1st April.
