Lottery 'finders' must pay back 50%

Lottery 'finders' must pay back 50%

www.google.com

A couple who found a winning lottery ticket and cashed it in have been ordered by a court to pay back half the prize money to the woman who bought it.
Dorothy McDonagh, 61, dropped the £1 daily play ticket on the floor of her local Co-op store in Swindon on October 20 last year.
Michael and Amanda Stacey were convicted of fraud after they found the ticket, cashed it and then spent half of the winning £30,000 prize money on clearing their debts.
They were each given an 11-month suspended sentence in April this year.
On Friday, a judge at Swindon Crown Court ordered Mr Stacey, 43, to pay M

(visit the link for the full news article)

Sounds fair?

Or does it?

I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this happening, and with Lotto as well with jackpots of millions. I guess camelot have to be more careful about dishing out millions to the wrong person, but still 30 grand is still a lot for most people.

www.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 24-7-2009 by john124]

If someone drops a lottery ticket
and someone else finds it

that someone else cashes it

how can they find out that the ticket was originally purchased by the first person?

If the other couple says they bought, how can you proove they are lying?

It's a piece of paper with NO ID on it

That's ridiculous. Sure it would suck to lose a winning ticket but it wasnt stolen it was dropped and later found. How do you make an effort to return a lost/found winning ticket? Flyers on telephone poles? Found: one winning lotto ticket.

Folks shouldnt be playing the lottery anyway. It's little more than a stupidity tax.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
If someone drops a lottery ticket
and someone else finds it

that someone else cashes it

how can they find out that the ticket was originally purchased by the first person?

If the other couple says they bought, how can you proove they are lying?

It's a piece of paper with NO ID on it

It has a transaction number on the ticket. If it was purchased via credit card, they can track the transaction number and pull up the name on the credit card. Still, she dropped it. Ever heard of finders-keepers?

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Yhea I've thought about this before and did a little digging for similar things, usually the lottery operators will consider and investigate for you if say you use the same numbers all the time, or you always use the same shop and the staff know you.. Then if your lucky there is a nice clear image of you on the CCTV and the time log's match up with the logs on the machine - Then happy days they have proven to them selves that you are the rightful winner (but I believe it's quite common for them not to pay out the full amount for one reason or the other)

Edit: Of course that does revolve around the customer knowing they have won! - me I usually just select random numbers, if I were to loose that ticket I would really not know what my numbers were and for all I know I could of already lost out on a win - my wallet was stolen from my pocket when I was asleep on the bus!!! £70 cash and another £70 in train tickets my employer was going to refund - not to mention the cost of replacing the driving licence and the 3 month old condom!

[edit on 24/7/2009 by Now_Then]

Originally posted by Sliick

It has a transaction number on the ticket. If it was purchased via credit card, they can track the transaction number and pull up the name on the credit card. Still, she dropped it. Ever heard of finders-keepers?

Question: If I bought the winning lottery ticket with a credit card, and lose the ticket..., do I still win? I mean, why bother with the ticket at all, if someone can just see the transaction took place?

The lady kept a receipt from the purchase.

Thats what the story says.


Still not fair though...

Here in the States, you can only buy a lottery ticket with cash. The only way you could determine who really bought it is by checking the security camera where it was purchased.

Originally posted by mattifikation
Here in the States, you can only buy a lottery ticket with cash. The only way you could determine who really bought it is by checking the security camera where it was purchased.

You can buy a lotto ticket here in the UK with debit card, not sure about the other games though.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


The Lady in question had the reciept for the lottery ticket that she bought, so she did prove that the lottery ticket was hers and not the couple whom spent the claimed the money and spent half of it..

Actually if that couple had any deceny inthem, they would give all the money back to the lady in question.

Maybe this is a wake up callto those who buy Tickets for the lottery, tomake sure where it is, before some one else ges thier hands on it.

[edit on 24-7-2009 by Laurauk]