A former overseeas Filipino worker named Antonio Failon accidentally burns his lottery ticket by a flat iron, causing him to unfortunately throw away the chances of claiming his 12-million peso lottery prize.
In a report that Mendoza apparently claimed that he had bought the lotto ticket with the winning combination 09-21-31-36-40-41 at the Barangay Dacanlao, Calaca, Batangas outlet.
This said combination had won the jackpot prize of 12-million last October 2.
However, as Mendoza was preparing to claim his instant fortune from the Philippine Charity Sweepstake Office or PCSO, his young grandchild had grabbed the ticket from him and managed to crumple it.
Mendoza narrated how his small grandchild grabbed the ticket and got it crumbled. Because of the incident, one of his in-laws suggested that they should have it flat ironed since PCSO proved to be sensitive when it comes to the claiming of prizes.
Roxanne Mendoza, his daughter, was the one who did the ironing. Unfortunately, as she ironed the ticket, a big portion of it got burned.
Despite the event, Mendoza still went on his way to PCSO in attempt to verify if he could still be able to claim his prize.
PCSO did confirm that the winning lottery ticket came from the very outlet where Mendoza had bought his ticket. Although they had verified that, they did not give him the prize for the machine could no longer read his ticket.
Acting chairperson and general manager of PCSO, Ferdinand Rojas II, stated that that the institution is strict about their policy, “No Ticket, No Payment”. He gave emphasis that the ticket should be able to be read by their machine.
Also, according to Rojas, he stressed that the said guidelines were given effect because there are many fake claimants who go to their office every month, saying that they have won the money.
Rojas accentuated that the PCSO’s Legal and Technical team is still looking for solutions to Mendoza’s predicament.
PCSO reminded their ticket buyers to take good care of their tickets as the prizes will not be paid if the ticket is defaced, altered, torn, damaged or has failed any of the tests PCSO conducts in order to prove the validity of the ticket.
However, as reported in Newsgraph, the acting PCSO chairman states that it’s not the end of the line for the OFW jackpot winner.
Rojas added that there is one year left to claim the prize and it would be nice that, within that one year period, probably somebody else out there has real winning ticket and he might walk in the office and claim his price. Reference: kickerdaily
