The back of the ticket makes the risk clear but some people are unable to go in person so this is the only option. 

 

When I got my first claimer, because it wasn't anything major, I thought about just mailing it in but I didn't wanna wait for the check. I wasn't even thinking of theft as a possibility. I just wanted the winnings right away. Although I did wonder about the mailing address. The workers would see that it's going to the lottery so it must be a winner in there. So much trust is required. 

 

In this case though it wasn't addressed to the lottery. The victim sent it to a family member with a regular standard address. So I'm not sure how the postal worker got it. I guess the only thing that makes sense is that the worker probably has a habit of randomly opening regular mail hoping to find something good, maybe gift cards or cash. I guess the ticket could have felt like cash so they opened it. 

 

I guess the lesson is just go the district offices or send it certified but also make copies of the ticket for verification. 

 

Then again, is it really that risky? Because how can someone really get away with it? The investigation was able to find the culprit quickly. So even if it is stolen they will be caught. I don't know what she was thinking. How she thought she could have gotten away with it.

 

 

Ohhhh , the ticket was most likely not signed since the victim was gifting it to a family member, yeah that makes sense. It had to be unsigned so that the family member could redeem it with their signature. So when the postal worker saw the unsigned ticket she felt it was a finders keepers or stealers keepers situation. If it's not signed then it's harder to prove who bought it.

 

Fortunately she did the right thing and confessed. I'm guessing she felt a detailed investigation would see that she didn't actually purchase it with the cameras. Although some stores only keep surveillance footage for a week while others 30 to 90+ days so she could have gambled that there was no security footage and just claimed she bought it. 

 

Nooooo, scrap all of that. Because she only got caught because the victim reported it undelivered and likely had copies of it so the postal worker had no choice but to confess. She could never have claimed it was hers because how would the victim have known about it.

 

The news said that she is still employed to the postal service. So hopefully she will learn her lesson and not do this again.