National Lottery outside of UK error

[Anonymous]

Anyone have the error when trying to access the national lottery website on 3G, saying you are outside of the uk, when you are not. Been going round in circles for ages, lottery blame O2, O2 blame lottery. I have found both support services next to useless, especially O2. I have 4 accounts and I am seriously thinking of moving to another provider.

Has anyone found a solution to this problem?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 I have 4 accounts and I am seriously thinking of moving to another provider.

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...because you cant access a Lottery website? Really???

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

But anyway, to try and resolve the problem (which if you google it you will find its a problem that affects ALL UK Carriers not just O2):

Can you visit - http://www.whatismyip.com - that will tell you tell you what IP address your phone is offering to the world in general.

Once you have the IP address you can look it up on one of the regional registries like RIPE (ripe.net) which will tell you who it is registered to and which country it is registered in.

If it is not in the UK the Lottery will block access to you. The National Lottery use a standard GeoIP lookup software and if your IP address isn't recognised by their lookup software, it considers you to be outwith UK or Isle of Man.

The problem is the GeoIP software that the website uses, not O2. Your IP address should obviously be showing as being within the UK, but unfortunately I envisage hours on calls to O2 Customer Services getting it resolved if you want to try.

Alternatively, connect to WiFi and you shouldnt have the problem.

[Anonymous]

Hi there! I have an iPhone and I solved the same problem by resetting network settings. You will lose any passwords to wifi networks but it solved the problem for me! I imagine most phones nowadays have rest network options! I hope this helps someone, someday!

[Anonymous]

Because of the service. Really...