Imagine throwing away a winning lottery ticket without realizing that you have won a million-dollar prize. A US woman was in a similar situation when she tossed her Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket worth $1 million in the trash.
Lea Rose Fiega had purchased a Diamond Millions ticket for $38 in March from a convenience store. The store she had purchased the lucky scratch card from was the Lucky Stop Convenience Store.
When she scratched the ticket, she did not realize she had won and therefore, asked the store shop assistant to discard it. Fiega recalls that she was in a hurry that particular day and scratched the ticket in a haste. The ticket did not look like a winner to her so she abandoned it at the store and left. She did not have enough time to scratch the ticket properly and process what was on it and in a hurry left.
However, the store people did not throw it away, and in fact; it remained behind the counter for ten days. Luckily, the storeowner’s son Abhi Shah found the half-scratched ticket in the trash while he was going through the lottery tickets. After Abhi scratched the ticket, it revealed to him that it was worth $1 million. The winning woman had left her million dollars to rot in the trash without having any knowledge about it. Had it not been for the storeowner’s son this million-dollar ticket would just have been wasted.
Lea had almost missed her chance to acquire the millionaire title. Since she is an old and regular customer of Lucky Stop, therefore, the staff knew whom the ticket belonged to. Mr. Shah informed lea about the winning ticket who visited her while she was at work. Lea revealed that it was not until she left office and met with Shah’s parents did he reveal about the win. When she was finally informed about the win, she was in utter shock and disbelief. Her emotions got the best of her as she poured tears and hugged the storeowners.
Ms. Lea is one lucky woman to not just win a million dollars but to have acquired an almost lost ticket. Had Abhi not seen the ticket she would have missed her chance at acquiring such a huge windfall. The winning woman is grateful to the storeowners for informing her about the win. She was quite impressed by their honesty to get in touch with her and feels blessed.
The store shall also get a gratuity of $12,900 for having vended the lucky ticket. The Massachusetts State Lottery will pay this bonus from the state lottery commission.
As a gesture of gratitude and appreciation, Lea gave the owners of the store an additional reward out of the windfall. The remaining prize money she shall save as part of her retirement plans.