A COUPLE who won £35million lotto jackpot ended up with nothing because of a blunder.
Edwina and David Nylan, from Fleetwood, Lancs, were left devastated after discovering they had missed out on the life-changing windfall.
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The couple claimed they matched six of the winning lottery numbers while playing on the Lottomobile app on Christmas.
The couple hoped to see their lives turned around in the New Year and become millionaires.
But what should have been a the biggest moment of their lives ended up in huge disappointment.
Edwina and David said they bought a ticket for the draw on December 23, 2015.
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But their account showed they didn’t have the cash to go pay for the purchase of the £2 ticket.
They then added more money into the account and bought a ticket using the numbers 01 – 02 – 04 – 19 – 28 – 41.
Edwina said: “David has an app on his phone which he uses to generate random numbers.
“We scribbled them down, and they are stored on his phone.”
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However, when the pair tried to claim the whopping £35,410,034 jackpot prize Camelot told them they had no record of the transaction.
She added: “When the numbers came up, it looked like we had got all six and had won the jackpot but when I checked, there was nothing from Camelot.
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“I rang customer services at Camelot and the person I spoke to said they could see from their records that we had intended to buy those numbers but they said the purchase did not go through because we only had 60p in our account.
“We had tried to top up the account, and hadn’t realised that hadn’t registered either.
“You get an email to confirm your purchase, but I didn’t remember to check because it was just before Christmas and I was so busy.
“Camelot has now told me they are looking into it with their IT department.”
Despite the huge blunder, the couple decided to carry on playing the Lottery.
Edwina said: “I am gutted, but what can we do?
“We have played for years, and had our online account for some time, so it is not as if we didn’t know what we were doing.
“I have just had to carry on with things and not get too down.
“Shocked isn’t the word, but as a family we stick together and just have to be grateful for what we’ve got.”
Camelot claimed the couple attempted to buy the tickets multiple times but it couldn’t confirm whether or not they would have won.
A spokesperson said: “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.
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“Only tickets that have been successfully purchased can be entered into the draw.
“So it is up to players to ensure that they have adequate funds in their account to complete a ticket purchase.”
DON’T AVOID MISSING ON LOTTERY WINNINGS
FOR lottery players, losing a winning ticket is a nightmare – especially if they think they’ve won big.
Lotto expert Andy Carter – a senior winners’ advisor at The National Lottery – told the Sun there’s no need to worry.
- He urged Brits to call the National Lottery as soon as possible to report their ticket missing.
- Players have one month to do so, and risk losing their prize all together if they don’t remember.
- Players should also remember where and when they bought their tickets to help national lottery staff track down their numbers.
- And finally, he said the best way to avoid missing-ticket panic is to buy on the National Lottery app.
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