Dec 9, 2006 7:51 pm US/Pacific
Winning Lottery Tickets Turn Out To Be Losers
by Lisa Chan
SACRAMENTO (CBS 5) ―
A woman who thought she'd won the jackpot turned out to be a lottery loser.
There was a printing error.
Lisa Chan talked to the disappointed ticket holder who may not be the only one to have her lottery dreams dashed.
"Basically it's the kids," says Luna. "I thought they were going to get all their Christmas wishes this year."
But the Grinch came early this year for Luna. Sunday she bought a lottery ticket from a Safeway store in Vallejo. To her delight, the card revealed she won $20,000.
"That's probably going to be a nice Christmas for us and probably make a lot of our problems disappear," says Luna.
But when she went to claim her prize she was told she was not a winner. The state lottery office says more than 11,000 bonus crossword tickets were misprinted and close to 4,000 were activated and sold in the past week.
"I said to myself this is not happening, this is not happening," says Luna.
She says it's been a rough year. Luna is a medical assistant at Kaiser. Her husband works part-time in maintenance at the Best Western Hotel. Last month, their car died. Luna hoped to buy a new one and give her two young kids a Christmas they'd always remember.
That is until her big holiday rush became a holiday crush.
"If they made a mistake, that's their mistake -- I'm sorry, they should pay," says Luna.
Other people we asked felt the same way.
"Give em their money," says Philicia Taylor, "Yea they should get their money."
"Maybe take them all and give them an amount and divide up between everybody," says Carol Ruszler, "But that would be frustrating if you finally hit it and didn't get it."
"I guess they should give them some type of money for the mistake they made," adds Clay Brandl.
Shane Johnson agrees. "They should get paid it's not their fault," says Johnson.
Unfortunately the lottery office in Sacramento told Luna she wasn't going to get her money. Instead they offered to give her another lottery ticket worth $3. Luna is in the process of filing a claim and is hopeful one day she will see her $20,000.
One other person has tried to claim a $20,000 winning ticket. Luna says that person bought the ticket at the same Safeway.
We tried to contact the state lottery office in Sacramento. Our calls were not returned.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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