A PLAYER who bagged a lotto prize revealed they couldn’t withdraw their winnings because of a silly account mistake.
The lotto winner was unable to claim their £106 cash prize because their bank card was no longer attached to their account.
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They discovered the sum after logging into their unused National Lottery app on their phone which showed a balance of £2.50.
Unfortunately, they can only change the card when the balance hits zero.
As a result, the player now has to continue buying lottery tickets to use up their balance.
They claimed to have emailed the operator, but have heard nothing back.
Several lotto players have experienced difficulties after Allwyn replaced Camelot as an operator of the National Lottery.
However, this has reportedly only affected players who have bagged prizes between £500.01 and £50,000.
The operator claimed for safety and security, it has prohibited funds from being deposited from one card and withdrawn on another.
This is to prevent any problems should an account be fraudulently accessed, Allywn added.
It comes after Andrew Leese, from Staffordshire, vowed to never play the National Lottery again despite winning £1,500 in March.
The 61-year-old was ecstatic following the win, but things turned sour after he waited three weeks for his winnings to arrive.
Leese said the process involved him filling out an online form and sending photos of the front and the back of the ticket.
Then the company emailed him a barcode that he took to the Post Office scanned it and sent off a label to the National Lottery.
But Leese said the process didn’t run smoothly and he had to ring the operator three times before he could get a barcode.
The aggrieved winner said after he managed to do that he didn’t hear anything for a fortnight.
He then went on holiday and expected to find the cheque on his return.
Instead, Lees said he found the lottery had had to put in a claim against Royal Mail after it allegedly lost the ticket.
Camelot, who has been in charge since 1994, was replaced by Allwyn, as chosen by the Gambling Commission.
The handover on February 1 marks the first time the lottery has changed hands since it was launched nearly 30 years ago.
Leese said: “Why this company has been given the licence when they have no infrastructure in place I don’t know.
A spokesperson for Allwyn Entertainments said: “We’re very sorry to hear of Mr Leese’s concerns and have been in touch with him with an update.
“This is a new claims process we’ve had to introduce following the Post Office’s decision to no longer pay National Lottery retail prizes between £500.01 and £50,000.
“As a result of it being new, we’ve been experiencing higher volumes of players contacting us and some initial delays to players receiving their prizes.
However, this mum who bagged a whopping £1million in a National Lottery jackpot thought she had just won a bit of “pocket change” after she made a terrible error.
‘POCKET CHANGE’
Toni Henderson, 32, said that she initially thought she won only a tiny fraction of the cash after not checking her ticket properly.
The County Durham woman said: “On the odd Saturday I might buy some Lucky Dips on Lotto, which is exactly what I did that afternoon. I didn’t do anything with them until I woke up at eight the next morning and thought I would have a look.”
“I checked one of the lines and realised I had some of the numbers. I originally thought I had matched five numbers, which was £1,700 and I was buzzing that I’d won that – it was extra money I didn’t have.
“But when I logged into my online account it came along the top that I had won £1m.
“I sat there counting the zeros, shaking in bed, whilst my son was still asleep.”
Despite the massive win, the payments assistant is still counting her pennies.
Toni said she had been living payday to payday and with her rent having just gone up, she was struggling to pay the bills.
“The win will help me massively – I have so much freedom now and I feel a lot more independent,” she added.
“It gives my son the start he deserves and I want the money to last for our future.”
Toni will keep working and wants her son to understand the importance of hard work.
However, she’s now thinking about buying a house, helping out friends and family, and a buying new motor – a Kia Sportage.
A Punter nearly missed out on £300k beacuse of a Lotto app blunder
Joanne Jobson, from Hartlepool in County Durham, was left in shock after landing the whopping windfall.
The dedicated care worker, who looks after children with disabilities, couldn’t believe it when a text from The National Lottery popped on her phone.
After waking up from a night shift, she checked her phone only to find a message urging her to open her account.
But after logging onto the app, she nearly missed the huge jackpot as she thought it was too good to be true.
The 51-year-old said: “I logged onto my account and couldn’t believe what I was reading.
“I had to re-read the message several times as I thought it was telling me what ‘I could win’, not what I had ‘actually won’. I jumped out of bed and went to tell my mum.”
But her shocked mum told Joanne it was a scam.
She added: “I remember just saying to mum ‘I think I might have won a lot of money‘ and showing her my phone.
“Mum was convinced it was a scam, so I googled the winning Set For Life numbers for the same date to see if they matched – which of course they did.”
With the winnings she can finally buy a house and move out from her mum’s place.
She explained: “I’m so excited to be able to buy my own home and I have already started house hunting.
“I’ve been living with my mum trying to save for my own place but was still some way off from making that move happen – it’s amazing I can now make that dream a reality.
“I still can’t believe that I’ve won, it’s absolutely life-changing for me.”
Joanne hopes to spend her golden years around the world on sun-kissed holidays in exotic destinations – including Barbados and the Maldives.
She added: “I may even go on a world cruise as there are so many incredible places I want to visit.”
The dedicated daughter is also planning to treat her family and enjoy adventures together.
Joanne, who only started playing Set For Life five months ago said she never thought she could win.
She added: “I didn’t think things like this happened to real people like me, but I’m proof they really do.”
‘UNBELIEVABLE’
She scooped the Set For Life prize bagging an eye-watering £10,000 every month for the next 30 years.
The jaw-dropping win means she can be financially secure until she’s 81.
She said: “I’m going from working nights and saving hard to being able to buy things when I want and plan holidays I could only have dreamt of before.”
When she told her two older sisters, they burst into tears with the good news.
Joanne said: “When I told them they both just cried – it was very emotional for us all.
“I think that was the moment when it finally sank in for me too that I really had won. I feel so lucky that this has happened – it’s just phenomenal.
