What would have been a life-changing win turned into heartbreak when a couple found out they couldn’t collect their winnings.
Edwina and David Nylan (Image: Thomas Temple/ Rossparry.co.uk)
Lottery winners Edwina and David Nylan who believed they had scooped a life-changing £35million Lotto jackpot were left devastated after discovering they wouldn’t receive a single penny. The Fleetwood, Lancashire couple had chosen the numbers 01, 02, 04, 19, 28 and 41 through the Lottomobile app at Christmas. When the draw took place, every one of their chosen numbers came up.
A moment that would have marked a Christmas miracle, however, soon turned into one of heartbreak. The Nylans had selected the exact winning numbers for the Lotto draw on 23 December 2015, unknowingly matching all six numbers that would go on to land the £35,410,034 jackpot.
The couple said that despite the heartbreaking setback they would continue to play the Lottery (Image: ITV)
Their account showed there were insufficient funds to cover the £2 ticket at the time of purchase, so they attempted to top it up, and hadn’t realised the transaction hadn’t gone through, Edwina said. She explained that players usually receive an email confirming their ticket purchase, but she had not checked at the time due to the busy run-up to Christmas.
Despite selecting the correct numbers, the couple was told there was no record of the ticket ever being successfully purchased.
This means their ticket purchase never went through because there wasn’t enough money in their bank account. At the time, they reportedly had just 60p available.
Edwina said: “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.
“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.”
The crushing reality left the couple in the same financial position they had been in before buying their £2 ticket.
The winning numbers played by the couple (Image: Rossparry.co.uk)
Edwina added: “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.”
Despite this heartbreaking experience, the couple said they plan to continue playing the Lottery.
Camelot confirmed that while multiple attempts were made to buy a ticket before the 7.30pm cut-off time, none were successful due to insufficient funds.
A spokesperson also stated that customer services staff would not have visibility of the exact numbers the player attempted to select, as that information is not displayed on their system.
A Camelot 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. We do not have any record of the player attempting to add funds to their account, nor would anyone from our customer services team have any visibility of the numbers that the player attempted to purchase because that level of detail wouldn’t be shown on the screen in front of them.
“When anyone successfully purchases a ticket on the Lottery website they will see a purchase confirmation screen, receive an email confirming their purchase and be able to see the ticket in their National Lottery online account.
“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.”
