Woman posts winning ticket online – winnings get stolen

A woman managed to get her Melbourne Cup winnings stolen after posting a selfie with her winning ticket on Facebook this week, in another example of why you need to be careful about what you post onto social media.

Chantelle made the risky bet by putting her cash on a rank outsider with odds of 100-1. She bet on female jockey Michelle Payne, and as it turns out, her luck was in. Payne won and pocketed Chantelle over $900. Well, not quite as it turns out.

An ecstatic Chantelle took a celebratory selfie along with her winning ticket, and that’s when her luck began to run out.

Each ticket has a unique barcode printed upon it. To collect the prize, the lucky winner simply goes to an automated pay-out machine, scan the barcode and grab their winnings.

Are you seeing where this is going?

Despite Chantelle apparently having her privacy settings set to Friends Only, one of her friends took the photo of her ticket, printed it out, and used it to scan on one of the pay-out machines.

Ouch.

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Chantelle wasn’t happy, but police are confident they’ll track the culprit.

It goes to show that you really cannot be too careful when it comes to posting things online, even if you do have good Facebook settings. It may be hard to have seen this one coming, but it does reinforce the ideal of pausing for a second before posting anything online to consider the potential consequences.

Hopefully police will catch up to the perpetrator, who we doubt Chantelle will be remaining Facebook friends with for too long.