A Cashier Returned an Unscannable Winning Lottery Ticket to a Customer—So His Daughter Launched an Online Smear Campaign Accusing Her of Theft
Pexels/Reddit
It can be hard to clear your name when people have already decided you did something wrong.
That’s exactly what happened to one grocery store cashier after a customer came in to collect his lottery winnings.
For whatever reason, the machine wouldn’t scan his ticket, so neither she nor her manager could pay him.
After giving him the ticket back and explaining the problem, she thought it was over.
But when she got home, she discovered his daughter had accused her of stealing the money online, and hundreds of people believed it.
Read on to see what she did next.
I got dragged online as a thief (I’m not)
A few years ago, I worked for a short time at a small supermarket. I actually really liked the job until I had to quit due to unrelated circumstances.
I worked Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, and as we were next door to a bunch of takeaways, people were generally finishing up their week, in a good mood, getting food in.
I was really easily identifiable as the blue supermarket hadn’t received their uniform delivery. I was in normal clothes the whole time I worked there.
Unfortunately, their Lotto machine wasn’t working.
One day, a man comes in, elderly, and is super excited because he’s won £200 on lotto. The ticket is a little crumpled but fine enough. I scan it, and the lottery machine gives me an error. It doesn’t recognize the ticket. I try several times, same result.
If you don’t work with lotto in the UK, if the ticket is below a certain amount, lotto retailers are meant to pay it out. To do this, though, I needed to get essentially an IOU from Camelot (who run lotto) to put in the till. Otherwise, the till would be light, and I’d lose my job.
To complete the process, you: 1. Scan the ticket. 2. Print IOU £200, put it in till. 3. Give man £200. 4. Tear up his ticket. (I didn’t do this because I couldn’t get past step 2.)
The machine was due to be serviced, AFAIK, and didn’t scan. I explain the situation to the man, hand him back his ticket fully intact, and apologize that it’s a pain.
When she got home, her mother was upset.
He tells me that he watched the lottery and has two winning numbers, and I can see that. I tell him that I believe him. I just can’t hand him the winnings without the ticket from the lotto machine.
He calls the manager over. Fair enough, same result.
I should also note that retailers themselves cannot open/repair/tamper with lotto machines. Camelot services them. We could clean the front but can’t fix it on the spot.
Several hours later, I get home, and my mum is fuming.
The whole thing didn’t end well for her.
A post from a fairly influential person in the community, apparently this guy’s daughter, is essentially accusing me of stealing the winnings.
Hundreds of people are agreeing with her in the comments, and they’re complaining about “the new girl not in uniform.” They are giving full descriptions to avoid, the whole show.
Notably, in the post, the man went to the supermarket later that day and *claimed the winnings*.
I ended up messaging her and explaining the situation again. My manager nearly had a heart attack that I would do such “customer outreach.”
She corrected the post, was mildly apologetic, but by then it was too late. I still got comments until I stopped working there. Occasionally, people still mention “that one who stole the lottery winnings in small supermarket.”
Yikes! If this is true, the whole thing sounds really unfair.
Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit feel about the whole thing.
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It seems like there’s more and more of it all the time.
This person gets it.
Well, that probably depends if she knew it was a lie or not.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about customer who won’t take no for an answer when it comes to outdated price-matching policies.
Yeah, situations like this are never fun.
That woman should’ve made sure she had her facts straight before posting anything.
After all, her dad still had his ticket and collected his winnings, so what exactly did the cashier steal?
Being frustrated is one thing, but trying to ruin someone’s reputation over a lie is ridiculous.
Hopefully, she thinks twice before doing something like this to anyone else.
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