Couple who ignored lottery emails for months stunned after discovering what they’d won

A couple who spent a month assuming messages about their winning lottery ticket were spam, were shocked to discover they’d won a huge amount of cash.

James Briggs, 42, and wife Sally, 40, from Walsall in the West Midlands, ignored messages from Camelot asking him to get in touch for four weeks, before he eventually decided to give them a call.

James said: “I buy my Set For Life tickets one month in advance via the National Lottery app.

"I received an email about the draw on August 3 but ignored it as there was so much going on. I was busy with work, including an international trip to a conference.

"Then we had a holiday to Berlin to celebrate Sally’s birthday.

"There was home stuff to do, so it was only after seeing the fourth email when we got back from holiday that I actually got around to reading it."

The senior implementation specialist was completely unaware they'd just pocketed £10,000 a month for the next year.

"I wasn't sure if it was spam or proper actual emails.

“It was a Sunday night (10 September) and Sally and I were getting bits and bobs sorted before returning to work the next day.

"I was checking my emails while watching the TV.

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"I didn’t say anything to Sally but decided I’d call the National Lottery line the next day and see if all these emails were true.

“I called the following morning, still wondering whether it was real but, after chatting to various people and seeing everything on the app it finally dawned on me that it could actually be true.

"Having had the confirmation call with The National Lottery, I messaged Sally at work and said I had some news for her when she got back home.”

Sally, a fleet scheduler, said she panicked when she saw the message from James and initially assumed it was ‘a problem’.

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She said: “I thought there was a problem. I couldn’t think of anything else until I got home.

"Then James told me, and I just kept on repeating, ‘you what?’ I was in total disbelief.”

With the first instalment of their winnings, the couple have paid off their car loan - they now plan to spend some of their £120,000 winnings on a ‘she shed’ for Sally, a holiday, a laptop - and a new front door.

The couple are also planning a trip to Vancouver and want to invest in property long term.