National Lottery Website

Euro millions £95m

Lotto website.

I couldn’t get out of the house in time to buy a ticket for Euromillions which has a jackpot tonight (8th Feb 2008) of 95 million GBP, so I decided to buy my tickets online from the National Lottery website (which is the reason I decided to register with the site in the first place as I might not always be able to get out to buy a ticket).

When I tried to log in to the website I was presented with a message that said there seems to be a problem with the requested operation.

I persevered and eventually managed to get to the login page and entered my details. I was then presented with another error page.

I tried several times and actually managed to log in at one point. I was then told that my funds were below the required minimum and I would need to add funds. I clicked the button to add funds and enetered the amount and submitted it. Then I get yet another error message.

I tried again, this time I was told that my session has timed out and I needed to log in again.

Yes you guessed it, I couldn’t. 15 minutes I sat trying to log in to my account and still didn’t get anywhere.

“Service will be resumed shortly” they say on the website. When? After the draw most likely. Lot of good that will be.

I think this is disgusting that a company with as much money as they have cannot have a website capable of dealing with the amount of traffic that most people would expect from such a site.

Isn’t it obvious that by the nature of the website that a lot of people will be trying to access it on nights where the jackpot is very high? Isn’t that what the site is for?

So it looks as though many people will not even have the slim chance of wining this large amount of money because of the poorly set up website that should be able to cope easily with this amount of traffic.

If a company running a national lottery (or European lottery) cannot cope with the fact that most people in the country/countries will likely be trying to accessing the site at any given time then maybe they should upgrade their servers and or software or whatever the problem is, or failing that maybe they should consider a different business.

It is completely out of order and a major let down for everyone who relies on the site for the purchase of their tickets.
These people have no chance now of winning this large Jackpot.

I would imagine that many people will now put much less faith in the national lottery website.

And rightly so.
It is certainly true of me. I have little time for them now. A potentially life altering amount of money has been denied by their poorly organised system.

Are these people just content to keep grabbing the money as it rolls in? Well it would seem so wouldn’t it?
Why are they not prepared for this, they knew it was a rollover, they know it can only roll over 3 times and they know that when it’s a rollover that more people buy more tickets. So why has this come as such a surprise to them?

I am not a fan of the ‘sue them’ brigade or this age of litigation we currently live in, but in cases like this I think the company should be sued. They need to realise that they have commitments that they should uphold when they went into business.

Poorly organised and shoddy and wholly unfair for a very large amount of people.

I hope several people do sue them, I bet they wouldn’t make the same lame mistake again in a hurry.

For my part, if I don’t manage to get a ticket for this draw because of their poor management and lame excuses, I will never use the website again. I will consider not playing and will do what I can to discourage others.

Yeah right. The only thing that is likely to happen from those things I mentioned is that I wont use the website again, but even that is not likely to last long.
They know this, smug gits. They know that there is nothing people can do and if we decide to not play then we just make it easier for those who do play and it’s our own throats we cut.

It’s a common attitude these days, same as it is with employers and most other businesses around this country particularly.

Eventually, with 30 minutes left before the draw I get into the system and add my funds.
Huzzah.
They accepted my fund transfer of 10GBP into their account from my bank. I went to the relevant game and chose my draws. I submit the draws and the system stops again. I’m then signed out and when I try to sign in again the system is back to it’s former crap self.

Quick enough to take my money though eh? Sorted the site out specially for that.

I intend to try and transfer the funds back to my bank now. I am fully expecting them to say it can’t be done. No doubt the funds can only be transferred into the Lotto account.
They will likely say that I should use the funds to play other games.
The thing is, I don’t want to play other games, I wanted to play that game.

Now if some kind person could pick my rattle up and throw it back in the pram I would be most grateful. 🙂