PUBLISHED ONOctober 04, 2023 5:58 AMByLim KeweiA Thai couple's prayers to win the lottery were answered when they recently hit the jackpot.
But their elation soon turned into despair.
They were unable to claim the first prize of 30 million baht (S$1.1 million) as they did not have the lottery tickets on hand.
The 37-year-old woman, Nareerat Phanphamorn, took to Facebook on Monday (Oct 2) to share their plight, claiming that the winning tickets her husband had bought from an online lottery shop were not delivered to them.
A photo she uploaded in the same post showed five lottery tickets with the number 727202 — the winning number for the first prize of the lottery draw held on Oct 1. Each ticket was valued at six million baht, reported Thai news outlet Thaiger.
"It is within my reach. Let's see if I can reach it or not. The shop did not give me the tickets," she wrote in the caption.
In an interview with Thai newspaper ThaiRath, the woman explained that she and her husband, Kiat Liamsuwan, had visited a temple to pray for lucky numbers and were given the same number — 20.
Liamsuwan later bought five lottery tickets from an online vendor on Sept 23 and asked for tickets with the number 202. The shop offered him five tickets with the number 727202, and he requested to pay the cost of 720 baht upon delivery.
However, the couple never received their lottery tickets.
When the couple checked the Oct 1 draw results with the tickets they bought via chat messages with the shop, they discovered that all five tickets had hit the jackpot.
Thinking that there might have been a mishap during delivery, the couple immediately contacted the seller to ask if the tickets had been delivered.
To their shock, the vendor reportedly told them that the tickets were not delivered as Liamsuwan did not answer their calls.
Conversely, Liamsuwan claimed there were no missed calls in his call history and questioned if the shop was deliberately keeping the jackpot lottery tickets.
As the couple had not paid for the tickets, he also worried that they might not be entitled to them.
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According to Thaiger, the online lottery vendor later posted a statement on Facebook, clarifying that the tickets were returned to the shop after Liamsuwan failed to answer his phone during the delivery.
In addition, they claimed he had contacted them only after the announcement of the lottery results, but the shop reportedly has a rule stating that customers should contact the shop before 4pm on the day of the lottery.
Phanphamorn said she has filed a complaint against the online shop owner to the police in Uthai Thani province.
The couple submitted screenshots of their conversations with the agent of Heng Heng Lotto as evidence of their purchase of the lottery tickets, Bangkok Post reported.
Lawyer Kerdphol Kaewkerd, who is representing the couple, said on Oct 3 that he was confident the tickets belonged to his clients, and he would initiate action to recover them the following day.
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