Fresh out of the gates of 2016, we've got a story for you that will simply break your heart, and urge you to double check your online lottery ticket purchases from now on.
Edwina and David Nylan from the UK could have been the luckiest winners of December 2015, scoring a jackpot of £35 million thanks to matching six numbers of the lottery draw.
Yet, their purchase did not register as there were insufficient funds in the Nylan's account. In other words, while it may have appeared as if they had purchased a ticket with the mobile UK lotto app, they had not!
Edwina attempted to buy the £2 ticket on December 23, but could not as she did not have enough funds in her banking account. Regardless, the UK lotto app still confirmed the order. The company that operates the app denies any ticket purchase, saying that they cannot find a record of the Nylan's payment.
"The player did attempt to purchase an online lotto ticket multiple times on December 23 from 7pm onwards (the cut-off to buy tickets is 7.30pm), however there were insufficient funds in the player's account - so the attempted purchases were not successful. The player would have received an error message on every occasion confirming this."
Despite this, the lotto company can confirm that the Nylan's had attempted to purchase the lottery ticket "multiple times".
There were many steps the Nylan's could have taken to avoid this, as all online lottery purchases will email confirmation of the tickets purchased after an order is approved. This is one of the only ways that you can be assured of owning a legitimate lottery ticket. The Nylan's did not have enough money in their account, and should have confirmed their order properly, or even added in that extra £1.40 (they only had £0.60 in their account) to get the lottery ticket. While the couple is now battling to retrieve their prize money, the future looks bleak for this absentminded pair of would-be lottery winners.
