She threw away a lottery ticket, but the owner of the bar returned it to her: a woman wins $1 million
Winning the lottery is the dream of many and is, of course, an almost unattainable goal, but winning, losing the ticket and then having it returned to you by an honest trader really seems like a fairy tale. Yet the luck of a distracted woman and the honesty of an Indian store keeper meant that the winning ticket was returned to its rightful owner. Lea Rose Fiega had bought one of those scratch cards at the convenience store located near her work. The woman was on her lunch break and she very hastily scratched the ticket numbers, thinking that she hadn't won anything. She thought she had scratched away all the numbers and, with frustration of someone who knows perfectly well that she hasn't won anything, she threw away the ticket. A big mistake, but luckily luck and the shopkeeper's honesty helped her.
via The Guardian
Lea Rose Fiega had bought a $30 scratch card at the "Lucky Stop" convenience store in Southwick, hoping to win the precious prize pool: one million dollars. "I was in a hurry, on my lunch break, and I scratched it very quickly, I looked at it and it didn't look like I had won anything, so I returned it to the store to throw it away," said the woman. That ticket remained in the shop's trash for about 10 days, until the owner, Maunish Shah, went to check the tickets his customers threw away. When he found Lea's, he noticed that not all the numbers had been scratched, so he wanted to complete the game, perhaps feeling lucky. Never was a gesture more appreciated: the woman had forgotten to scratch the winning box, the one that would bring her 1 million dollars!
Shocked by the outcome, Maunish Shah began calling his relatives in India, who suggested he return the ticket: "We don't want that money!" So, the generous shop owner returned the winning ticket to Lea (he knew it was that woman, a regular customer of the store, who had hurriedly thrown it away), provoking in the woman a reaction of immense amazement, joy and gratitude. The owner's honesty paid off, as the store could also take advantage of a $10,000 state lottery commission for the sale of the winning ticket.
In a way, everyone's a winner in this story!
