Thai couple demands justice from online vendor after failing to claim 30 million baht lottery jackpot

A Thai couple lodged a formal complaint against an online lottery vendor for their failure to deliver a set of winning lottery tickets, resulting in the couple’s unfortunate loss of a 30 million baht jackpot.

On October 2, a 37 year old Thai woman, Nareerat Phanphamorn, posted on Facebook that she had won the lottery jackpot but was unable to claim the money because she had bought the tickets from an online shop and the shop owner had not delivered the tickets to her.

Nareerant attached a picture of five lottery tickets bearing the number 727202 to the post, which was the first prize in the lottery draw held on Sunday, October 1. Each of these tickets was valued at 6 million baht, making her the rightful winner of a 30 million baht jackpot. Nareerat said in the caption…

“It is within my reach. Let’s see if I can reach it or not. The shop did not give me the tickets.”

The woman and her 60 year old husband, Kiat Liamsuwan, gave an interview to ThaiRath about the issue yesterday. Nareerat said she had already filed a complaint against the online shop owner at Taluk Doo Police Station in the central province of Uthai Thani.

Nareerat explained that her husband was the one who bought the lottery tickets. They went to a famous temple to pray for lucky numbers. They performed a fortune-telling exercise with Chinese fortune sticks and both received the same number, 20.

Nareerat said her husband decided to buy lottery tickets from an online vendor on September 23, which was a first for him. He asked the online vendor to find him the tickets with the number 202, and the shop offered him five tickets with the number 727202. Five tickets cost him 720 baht and he asked for payment on delivery.

Cash on delivery, missed calls

The couple thought the tickets would be delivered before the lottery announcement on October 1 but they never received them. They then checked the tickets they had bought via chat with the shop and discovered that all five tickets had won the jackpot.

They said that they asked the online vendor whether they had delivered the tickets to them, as they initially thought it was a delivery company error. However, the vendor replied that they had not delivered the tickets to them because Kiat had not picked up the phone.

Kiat checked his missed calls history and found nothing. Kiat was curious if the shop was deliberately keeping the jackpot lottery tickets. However, he had not yet paid for the tickets as he had requested cash on delivery, so he was not sure if he was entitled to them.

The online lottery vendor later announced on its Facebook page that the shop did not deliver the tickets to Kiat because he did not answer his phone during the delivery time. The delivery service was unable to collect the money from the shop so the tickets were returned to the shop.

The vendor added that Kiat contacted the shop after the lottery result was announced. However, the vendor has a rule that customers can only contact the shop before 4pm on the day of the lottery.

A Thai lawyer, Nithikorn Kaewto, gave his opinion on the matter, saying that the lottery tickets should belong to Kiat because the sale and payment contract had already been completed even if Kiat had not yet paid for them. The lawyer advised Kiat to sue the shop owner for embezzlement.

Lotter jackpot deja vu

This is not the first time two parties have fought over the ownership of a lottery jackpot. A dispute between a Thai teacher named Preecha Kraikuan and a policeman named Jaroon Wimon kicked off one of the biggest property disputes in Thailand.

Preecha accused Jaroon of misappropriating the winning lottery ticket and filed a lawsuit against Jaroon. Jaroon insisted that he had bought the tickets himself and finally, after five years of defending himself, won the case against Preecha.

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