In an O.J. Simpson-style “if I did it” moment, Derren Brown finally shrugged off what was turning out to be a complete reversal on his usual format. Packing his previous programs with information on how seemingly psychic abilities are just tricks – this time, Derren dragged out an hour long program trying to make us believe that he believed in people’s psychic ability to predict lottery numbers … before finally not-admitting to what really happened.
We’ve always had our suspicions about the competence and honesty of Camelot and the National Lottery but have never been able to provide “evidence” (wink-wink) on the scale of The Events mastermind.
But we have our own method to get money from the Lottery System … one way or another!
We had a run-in with them earlier this year when their website was providing mis-leading information to customers. We were provided with a taped conversation between a National Lottery customer services representative and a disgruntled customer who had tried to purchase a ticket for the Euromillions through their website.
Firstly, the website was stating that there was 7 days left to buy a ticket for the 9th Jan 2009 draw:
This snapshot was taken on the evening of 9th Jan 2009, just a couple of hours before the draw took place. Websites are always malfunctioning — it is part of the web and the delicate programming that goes with it — but not all websites are responsible for the winning or losing millions of pounds. This, however, was an almost humorous error compared to what was to follow.
On trying to purchase a ticket at around 8.30pm for the 11pm draw, the purchase is refused. The individual who provided us with the recording spoke to customer services to ask what the problem was and was told that the draw was closed. The individual pointed out the National Lottery terms and conditions said tickets could be purchased up to half an hour before the draw which was still hours away.
Snapshot of Lottery terms and conditions 09/01/09
Euromillions draws take place around 11pm at night. Half an hour before that is 10.30pm – so why were the website ticket sales closed?
The customer services representative apparently had to go and research this — then the customer was directed to:
◊ 1. Scroll down to the bottom of the main page and click “Players Guide”.
◊ 2. Click on the Euromillions link.
◊ 3. Find the little box on the left of that page and click “General Information”.
◊ 4. Then scroll down through the wording on that page to “When can I buy tickets”.
Sure enough, there it said 7.30pm was the cut off point. Our now bewildered customer pointed out that the terms and conditions would be where everyone would look for such information and that the terms and conditions web page was clearly linked to from every other page on the website. When asked why the “truth” was buried pages deep in a place where no-one would ever look whilst the terms and conditions page said something completely different, the customer service representative did not answer and the call was ended shortly after.
So: why not start your own compensation claim against the lottery?
As of today, more than eight months later, the terms and conditions are still the same. The terms and conditions state that you can purchase a lottery ticket (it does not state which type) from the National Lottery website up to half an hour before the draw takes place.
So, simply call up the National Lottery, say you tried to purchase a ticket last night for the Euromillions draw according to their terms and conditions but the purchase was refused. Then say, you were going to buy a ticket for the numbers that came up and you’re therefore very cross.
Let us know how you get on!
A big thankyou to Derren Brown for pointing out just how easy it would be to fix the lottery. When you think of how much planning, preparation, organisation and guts it would take to storm a bank to get maybe half a million … why it is inconceivable that someone has not taken the time to get past a (probably poorly-paid) security guard to rig the lotto balls to gain £10million or more?
And let’s not get in to how easy it must be to hack in to the web services and change a few numbers on a single ticket …
Of course, we’re just kidding. I’m sure the National Lottery is protected from fraud by dozens of round-the-clock security guards, all of whom are beyond reproach ethically and the web servers even more secure than Bill Gates own Laptop. (And, we saw the end ball flick up during the prediction show when the split screen was removed.)
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