No house but £18,000 for raffle draw winner Ishbel, 22
A young woman who paid just £5 has won more than £18,500 in a raffle and hopes to buy plane tickets to see her father in America.
Ishbel Hampson, a 22-year-old college support worker from Shrewsbury, was the winner of a raffle that had originally been set up for a couple to sell their £400,000 home in Erdington, near Bridgnorth.
Rachel and Jonathan Overton wanted to sell the house they have lived in for over a decade, and decided to put it up as a special prize, mortgage-free in a raffle.
Tickets were on sale for £5 and the couple set themselves a target of 90,000 tickets – if that target was not met then as agreed with entrants the raffle winner would instead receive a cash prize.
In the event, a little over 4,500 tickets were sold despite a three-month extension, and the couple decided to hold the raffle on April 1 to choose the winner of the prize.
Ishbel, whose single ticket proved the lucky one, was busy when the live raffle was being conducted so she only found out she was the winner in a phone call afterwards.
"I still don't quite believe it," she said. "I didn't really believe it, with it being April Fools Day I thought 'this can't be real'.
"I sat there double-checking my ticket against the raffle.
"When the money went in my account I just kept checking it to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong!
Promoting
"I still don't believe it, I'm frantically checking my bank account to make sure it's still there.
"I've absolutely no idea what to spend it on and I'm scared to touch it. I want to go and see my dad in Texas but obviously I can't at the moment, and I want to see my nan in Spain."
The Overtons, who took no money from the raffle, will now pursue other avenues to sell the house.
A message from Mrs Overton said: "Sadly, after much time in promoting and advertising our raffle we have been unable to reach the necessary number of ticket sales to offer our home as the prize which we are extremely disappointed about.
"On a positive note, the draw will still take place and one lucky person will receive a cash prize from the ticket sales that were purchased by you all and a charitable donation will also be made.
"Jon and I signed up to Rafffl with our house as a prize and regretfully we are ending the raffle still with our house, but we are delighted to be able to make a significant difference to someone’s life with a cash prize."
A spokesman for Rafffl, the company that facilitated the raffle, who gave his name as Dave, said that the winner received £18,559.85 and other proceeds went to Rafffl and to FareShare, a charity network with the mission of relieving food poverty and reducing food waste in the UK.
He would not specify how much was given to the company or the charity.
He said: "I'm absolutely elated that someone like Ishbel has won this life-changing amount of money."
