A woman in the US unknowingly threw away her USD 1 million winning lottery ticket. But she was in luck that she got a second chance. It could happen only because of the Indian-origin family, who returned the discarded ticket to the women and met her with her fortune.
Lea Rose Fiega, from the US state of Massachusetts, had bought a Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket in March. She bought that ticket from Lucky Stop, the store owned by an Indian-origin family in Southwick where she was a regular customer.
“I was in a hurry, on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it. It did not look like a winner so I handed it over to them to throw away,” said Fiega.
10 days later, Abhi Shah, the son of the store owner saw the ticked sat in a pile of garbage. He noticed that the ticket was not fully scratched. When he scratched it properly, it was USD 1 million underneath the ticket.
“One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and noticed that she didn’t scratch the number. I scratch it and there was USD 1 million underneath the ticket,” said Abhi.
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He said that the winning ticket was sold by his mother Aruna Shah to one of the regular customers. Further, he told that he was thinking of buying a Tesla of this money but later decided to return it.
The family said it was not easy for them to return the ticket. “We did not sleep two nights,” said Maunish shah, store owner. They contacted Maunish’s parents in India and they said, “Give it back, we don’t want that money.”
After this, the family decided to return the ticket. They contacted the woman who had thrown the ticket and asked her to come over.
“I said I am working but he insisted to come over. So I went there and that’s when they told me. I was in total disbelief. I cried. I hugged them,” Ms. Fiega said.
The other customers of the store were not surprised over this. One of the customers said, “They are just purely good people. You can tell by just talking to them.”
The family is now getting many appreciation calls and requests for an interview.
“If I had kept that million, I wouldn’t have been this famous. So, I’m glad I gave it back,” said Abhi.