Unlucky ‘winner’ in lottery screw-up
p2pnet news view | Off Topic:- “I’m thinking, I have a house. I can make my family upstairs happy. I can make my wife happy. Now I can send my kids to school. I can do things in my life I’ve never done before.”
The words were 27-year-old Thomas Noftall’s from Brampton, Ontario, quoted by Sun Media.
He was beside himself with joy because he’d won $135,000 on four scratch tickets.
Or so he thought.
But his dreams came crashing down when he was told he hadn’t won anything after all.
It was a printer’s mistake and, “Ontario gaming officials spent much of yesterday apologizing after acknowledging a printing error created 1,100 false winning lottery tickets,” says the Toronto Star. “It is estimated that 50 to 150 of the defective $3 Fruit Smash scratch tickets were purchased,” it has the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp’s Rula Sharkawi saying.
But it isn’t going to end there. Not if Noftall can help it.
He’s demanding the OLG cough up the entire amount and if it doesn’t, he says he’ll sue the corporation.
“If they make me an offer, they’re admitting they’re at fault,” Noftall says in the Sun Media post. “They just want this to go away after going through hell with bad press.”
And, “I made sure to ask the woman from the start – in about seven different ways – if I would get paid regardless of the error because it was their mistake,” Noftall says ih the story. “She told me I absolutely would. She said they made the mistake and it would be false advertising if they didn’t (pay).”
Sun Media – Man wants $135,000, despite lotto blunder, January 7, 2009
Toronto Star – , January 7, 2009
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January 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
If they made this big a mistake, they should recall ALL tickets and issue new ones. $135,000 x 1,100 = $148,500,000.
What genius decided to ignore the error and just blow off the customer and think it wouldn’t have an adverse effect?
Morons.
Perhaps they were hoping for a tax-payer bail-out.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
That’s fail on their part, both the ‘winner’ and the lotto corp
January 7th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I hope he gets the money and emotional damages =P
January 9th, 2009 at 3:40 am
This is from the same organization that got caught defrauding winners at stores by telling them they lost when they actually won. Maybe lotteries should be abolished.