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February 20, 2006 in Randon, West Virginia: Crystal Adams walked into the Roc’s Shell gas station and purchased several 20 Grand Instant lottery tickets. She scratched them off in the store and gave them to the clerk, Misty Ann Crawford, and asked her if she’d won anything.
Crawford went to the back of the store to the lottery machine, but instead of scanning the tickets, she put them under the counter. She returned to the customer and told her she only won $2. Later that day, the clerk validated the tickets at a store in Middleway, W.Va, and filled out a claim form for one of the tickets: $20,000.
But the next day, Adams found out about her good fortune and reported it to the manager of the Shell station. And after they looked at the surveillance video in the store, they contacted the police, who managed to intercept the delivery of the $20,000 prize before Crawford received it.
Misty Ann Crawford was charged with counterfeiting, larceny, and obtaining property under false pretenses. She faces up to $6000 in fines and 21 years in prison.
As reported in the Hagerstown Morning-Herald, March 14, 2006.
June 25, 2005 in Nogales, Arizona: Cuauhtemoc Jose Luis Castaneda went to the Circle K convenience store to check if he’d won anything in last night’s $1.47 million Arizona Pick lottery drawing. He handed a stack of tickets to the clerk, Delia Kerr, and asked her to validate them.
When scanning the tickets, she saw that one of them had won the grand prize of over $1 million. She pocketed that ticket and passed the rest back to Castaneda, and when he complained that one ticket was missing, she said she must have lost it.
On July 17, her sister Susan cashed the ticket. But when lottery officials heard that a Circle K store clerk claimed the $1 million jackpot, they investigated and the surveillance video of the validation revealed that the ticket actually belonged to an unidentified customer.
After a three-month search, Castaneda of Nogales, Mexico was identified on November 9 and reunited with his missing ticket. Both Delia and Susan Kerr were arrested on charges of fraud and theft on August 15, 2005.
As reported in the Tucson Citizen, August 19, 2005, and the Associated Press, November 10, 2005.
May 9, 2005 in North Andover, Massachusetts: Elizabeth Gelarderes stopped at the Richdale convenience store to buy a Cash WinFall lottery ticket playing her regular numbers, a combination of birthdays of two of her children. The next day, she forgot to check her numbers, but instead, visited the same store and asked the clerk, Patrick Simboli, to see if she’d won anything.
She matched 5 out of 6 numbers – a prize worth $46,000 – but he instead told her that she only won a free ticket. He cashed the ticket later that day. It wasn’t until Gelarderes saw the winning numbers in a local paper that she knew that she had been cheated out of her winnings.
She called the lottery claiming she’d been scammed, and after a two-week investigation by police, she was reunited with her prize. Patrick Simboli faces charges of receiving stolen property and larceny over $250.
As reported in the Boston Globe, May 20, 2005.
January 19, 2004 in Westborough, Massachusetts: Erika Schmitt walked into a Quik Mart and on a whim, bought a Lucky Stars scratch ticket. She scratched off the ticket in the store, and when she uncovered 10 out of 10 stars winning the $20,000 grand prize, she excitedly told the clerk.
The clerk, Antoine Reiche, grabbed the ticket from her hand and told her she only won $100, which he promptly paid her. But after the leaving the store briefly to speak with a friend, she returned demanding that she see her ticket again. He claimed that he lost it. So, before leaving, he bought another scratch ticket from the same book that the winning ticket was in and left.
Schmitt phoned police shortly after, and a month later, police found the stolen ticket. Lottery officials confirmed that it was in the same book that Schmitt’s second ticket came from and awarded her the $20,000 prize. Antoine Reiche faces one charge of larceny over $250.
As reported in the Boston Globe, February 19, 2004, and the Natick Bulletin & Tab, March 4, 2004.
December 25, 1999 in La Verne, California: Arwa Farraj was working at the Circle K convenience store when she bought a California Quick Pick lottery ticket.
The next day, she showed the ticket to her supervisor, Gurinder Ruby, and asked if she’d won anything. Ruby scanned the ticket and saw that she’d won the grand prize: $8 million, but he told her it was only worth $88, which he paid from his own pocket.
About a month later, she learned that Ruby had claimed the grand prize, but when she contacted the police and lottery officials, they said they couldn’t do much because he’d already claimed the prize and sent most of the money to his family in India.
In February 2000, Farraj filed a lawsuit against Ruby. During the trial, the jury heard that no $88 ticket had been sold at the store in the months before or after the day in question, and that despite the fact that the surveillance video been mysteriously been erased for the five minutes during which Farraj bought the winning ticket, the store time sheets revealed that Ruby was not in the store when the ticket was purchased.
Gurinder Ruby and Circle K stores were ordered to pay Arwa Farraj $7.9-million for emotional distress and the value of the winning ticket on September 30, 2003.
As reported by the National Post, October 2, 2003.