What were you thinking??? – NYS lottery

I went online to purchase 6 months or 12 months of Lotto pulls, something I’ve done a couple of times before, since I am rarely in a store where I could (or thought of) buying them. Being on a very limited income, when I could afford it, even a partial win would help out.

However, when I attempted to purchase the quick pick, I was notified that my charge/debit card was not approved. Okay, there was $2,000 in there. But my bank had “protected” me before from any out-of-state purchases; I actually had to go into the bank to get the “protection” lifted, since I travel between states frequently and make a lot of purchases online that are from companies with headquarters outside of New York State. Well, maybe they forgot that; either way, this is a purchase from the state, so what’s the problem? I had to wait for the bank to open to inquire about the restriction. Before I had a chance, I got a call from the bank’s fraud department.

From a terrible connection, the question came out, “Did you recently try to make a $109 purchase from a lawn store in China?”

No ….

I was then connected to the fraud investigation department. Again, a terrible connection, and I had to ask the man to repeat the questions and answers several times.

Okay, let’s go through your last three purchases – this included a $107 purchase from the New York Lotto. Yes, those were all mine.

Surprise – the New York State Lottery financing is managed through a company in CHINA! Since this was out-of-country, they were still busy protecting my interests. The man suggested that I can ask the bank to suspend the international block for 24 hours in order to make this purchase.

Um … no, thanks. China is the worst hacker in the world – there is no way in hell I’m going to send them any financial information! I went to a store and purchased 3 months of lottery pulls on the same debit card.

But I have to ask the state of New York – what were you thinking?? You are opening the door for your citizens to get ripped off by the worst cyber spies on the planet. Another example of civil service lack of integrity.