Thousands of lottery winners have been speaking out after their prizes were withheld by the state – and it could all be down to a simple glitch.
Florida lottery winners say the Sunshine State is "illegally withholding" their winnings because of a system error that makes it appear they were overpaid in unemployment benefits.
Most winners are claiming they weren't overpaid, with some even producing checks to prove it, but all were left gobsmacked when told they wouldn't be getting a dime of their winnings.
READ MORE: Mum wins lottery but told she won't be getting her prize – thousands say the same
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Many of these people, according to NewsNation, applied for unemployment assistance during the coronavirus pandemic and claim they never received notice from the state that they were overpaid in benefits.
Bob Calamita scored $1,000 in March but upon a visit to the lottery office he was slapped with a letter stating he owed the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity $3,000 for an unemployment overpayment during the pandemic.
"I stay there about an hour and a half to be told ‘Sorry, you’re not getting this because you owe money on the DEO system," he told WFLA. "If I owed money, I would have paid it. I have no problem with that, but I didn’t owe money."
The state eventually sent Calamita a check with his full $1,000 prize. He said he was told the mix-up was due to a computer-generated error in its fraud system. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity said it's looking the problem.
In another case Florida resident Kathleen Lambert discovered her $1,000 lottery winnings were being withheld when she visited the Florida Lottery office in Gainesville.
Lambert and her husband had won $1,000 from a scratch card. However, she received a letter from FloridaCommerce stating her winnings would be withheld due to her husband's outstanding debt of $1,200, which stemmed from unemployment benefit overpayments made during the pandemic.
"Talk about a thrill," she told Fox affiliate WOFL. "I was so excited, laughing and showing everybody, but that was very short-lived when we drove an hour and a half to the Gainesville lottery office waiting for that nice check. And my jaw dropped."
Lambert argued they had not been informed about the debt. She mentioned they had previously received a letter indicating they owed $275 in overpayments, which they had paid back. She even showed WOFL a check as proof of this payment. "I think it’s downright sneaky," she said. It’s undermining to lottery winners.
“It’s like, we don’t owe you any money, you overpaid, you waived it you said, but then if you win the lottery you don’t get anything.”
The lottery player said she had planned to spend her winnings on a family trip to Disney World. “I know it costs more than $1,000 but that would have helped a lot,” she said. "So, to my surprise, there was no Disney World." FloridaCommerce said it was looking into the case.
Brittany Wilson, from Florida, thought she might be in with a chance of wiping some of her debts when she won £3,930 on the lottery. However, when she turned up to collect the cash she was turned away empty handed and slapped with a possible debt owed to the state.
Wilson said: "It was hard for me during that time. I was financially struggling … something just told me to go to the store and try out my winnings. I was thinking about all the bills that I have held up, just paying those off."
State officials claimed Wilson’s prize was being withheld because she had been overpaid when unemployed and receiving state benefits. Thousands of Florida residents had fallen foul when they received benefits they weren’t supposed to, according to FloridaCommerce.
And according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, if residents do owe debts, child support or taxes, states can allow their agencies to collect those funds from lottery winnings.
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