FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth woman says her gamble in letting a friend take her winning $20,000 lottery ticket to a store to verify whether it was a winner apparently didn't pay off.
Nancy Charlez, 34, filed a police report Tuesday, saying her friend returned empty-handed. Her friend said a man in a pickup took the unsigned "Lucky Dice" ticket from her and said it was "no good," the report claims.
Police are investigating the alleged scratch-off rip-off.
Bobby Heith, a spokesman with the Texas Lottery Commission, said he could not comment on whether anyone had tried to cash the ticket but said the agency is assisting Fort Worth police in the investigation.
Charlez, a stay-at-home mother of four, said she would have used the winnings to help bring her family out of the red. She said her husband is a roofer, and the work is not always steady.
"Right now we're behind on everything. We're behind on our bills. We're behind on our rent," Charlez said. "Honestly I would have used that money to catch myself up. I'm not the type of person who spends money to spend money. That would have helped me a lot."
Charlez said she had taken her sick twin 3-month-old daughters to the Cook Children's Medical Center clinic on Jacksboro Highway on Tuesday evening.
She said her friend, who had been hanging out at her house Tuesday, had offered to help with the babies and Charlez's two other children, a 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old boy.
While waiting to see the doctor, Charlez said she pulled out three $2 scratch-off lottery tickets from her daughters' diaper bag. She had bought them the afternoon before at a mini-mart near her house.
The first was a loser.
The second, a Lucky Dice Doubler ticket, revealed a 3 and 4, adding up to the needed winning combination of 7. The numbers were followed by "$20,000."
"At first when I scratched it off, I didn't believe it," Charlez said. Amanda Alvarado, a receptionist at the clinic, said she was among several employees to whom Charlez showed the ticket to get a second opinion.
"She said, 'Is this right?' " Alvarado said. "I looked at it and said, 'You won!' "
"I think we were more excited than she was," Alvarado said, laughing. "We were like, 'No way! Oh my God!' "
Charlez said her friend offered to take the ticket to the nearby Texaco Grab and Go Service Station at 2616 Jacksboro Highway.
"She asked me if I wanted her to take the ticket to the Texaco to see if it was a good ticket," Charlez said. "At the moment I didn't have my mind on the lottery ticket. I had my mind on my daughters, so I just went ahead and gave it to her."
Charlez said the friend returned without the ticket, claiming a man in a white pickup had taken it from her.
Charlez said she told her friend to go back to the store and get her ticket back. She said the friend returned and said the man had already left.
"It's a bunch of bull corn," Charlez said.
Charlez said she then went to the Texaco, where the clerk confirmed that the ticket was legitimate. She said she questioned her friend again and became suspicious after the friend told her that time that the man was in a red pickup.
Dambar Bohara, a cashier at the Texaco, confirmed Wednesday that the ticket the friend had asked him to check on his computer was a winner.
"I told her, 'You won $20,000!' " Bohara said.
Bohara said the woman was talking on her cellphone at the time and remarked, "That's not my ticket. That's somebody else's."
He said he gave the ticket back to the woman, instructing her to call lottery officials to arrange to get her winnings. He said the woman walked out of the store.
Bohara said that a male customer was at the counter but that he never saw the woman give the ticket to him or anyone else inside the store. He said he lost sight of the woman in the parking lot.
Less than an hour later, Bohara said, a frantic Charlez came to inquire about the ticket.
"She just told me, 'That's my ticket. Somebody took it. How do I get my money? Let me prove that's my ticket,' " Bohara said.
"She looked furious," Bohara added. "Like she lost everything."
The friend, who is not being named because of the police investigation, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Heith said people who win scratch-off lottery tickets should immediately sign the back of the card to ensure that only they will collect the winnings. Lost or stolen winning tickets should be immediately reported to local police and the Texas Lottery Commission, he said.
"Hypothetically speaking, if a person finds a ticket that has not been signed, and it is a winning ticket, they can claim the prize if it has not been reported to the local authorities or the Texas Lottery Commission as lost or stolen," he said.
If the unsigned ticket has been reported to authorities, as in Charlez's case, and a person tries to claim it, Heith said, the prize would not be paid until after an investigation. He said local authorities or the court system would determine the rightful owner.
Charlez is not hopeful she'll ever see her winnings.
"There's probably nothing I could do about it, but if I could stop somebody from cashing it, that's something," she said.
If this woman is telling the truth, then it's a very sad story. I really can't blame her for trusting a "friend" to be honest. She had her hands full with 2 sick babies. Most people don't stop to think that giving an unsigned lottery ticket to someone is just like giving them cash. If her friend (for lack of a better word) called someone on her cell phone, it's possible she worked out a deal with someone else to claim it so she won't be recognized. What a shame.
It is sad. This story shows you that you have to be careful about who you trust when dealing with a lot of money. I guess even friends can turn on you.
I'm not that trusting. I would have waited. If it's a scratch off game I believe you have a year after the game is officially over to claim. She could have just waited until the kids were okay.
I agree. She should have waited to cash the ticket. It wasn't like she had to check it right then and there. She should have waited till she wasn't so busy. But I do think it is a sad situation to be in.
She didn't sign it but went to let the authorities know that the ticket was stolen so now she still has a chance to get her money even though it will take a longer time.
It is so important that you sign your winning ticket(s). Eventually, she will get her winnings but by the time she pays attorney fees (usually 1/3), state taxes ( in Maryland 6%) and federal taxes (40%) her winnings will be $4,134.00. It would be in her best interest to contact the friend and say if the ticket reappears I will give you a reward and just give her a thousand dollars. I would give her the money because this might take two years to work itself out.
$20000.00 x .40 =$8,000.00 Federal Taxes
$20000.00 x .06= $1200.00 State Taxes
$20000.00/ 3= $6666.00 Attorney Fees
$8000+1200+6666=$15,866
$20000-15866=$4134.00
How stupid. Why do people play the lottery or gamble in general if they're struggling with bills? If you are in desperate need of money, then gambling is not a good way to go. If you are in any kind of debt and use the lottery as hope to pay off the bills, then you shouldn't be thinking of the lottery at all.
I find it interesting that this woman trusted her FRIEND with a winning ticket worth 20G's. If this story is true i would say this friend should have been a BEST FRIEND or LIFE LONG FRIEND. I know most people wouldnt trust just anybody with 20,000 cash because that is basically what the ticket is without a signature. I find the whole story fishy including her friend who the story doesnt mention if the police has spoken with him/her. Who do you know would give a winning lottery ticket (even if it was a $2 dollar winner) to a person in a white pickup. I guess the lottery commission can figure out if that ticket was a winner by its serial number and store assignment of this ticket. I hope if this story is true, this lady isnt so reckless with her money. I know if it was me...I WOULD TAKE THAT 20,000 MYSELF to the store.
This is true.
I have to disagree with you SmoothJuice...I would imagine that many people right about now have some sort of debt be it a mortgage, credit card balances, auto loans, student loans. So in that case according to your logic, the majority of people should not be playing the lottery or going to the casino. I also don't think it hurts anyone to hope for a windfall to wipe out their debt...of course, they shouldn't expect it to happen, but it never hurts to dream about it while you also work diligently to make money to pay yourself and your bills.
But I will say that this lady and her so-called friend could be cast for the female version of dumb and dumber...the so-called friend would be the dumb one for the lame ass story she came up with in an attempt to scheme off with the winnings and the scratch-if ticket winner is the dumber one for even giving the ticket to her...signed or not. I bet she would also espouse the philosophy that having money isn't everything, but like the great poet Kanye West sings in Good Life..."but having money is" especially when you consider that it takes money to pay for your housing, food, medical bills and whatever else you not only need but want in life.
And is it just me or does it seem that almost every scratch-if ticket winner shows the ticket to either a complete stranger or a friend or relative asking to verify if it is a winner? That just shows they aren't too intelligent 1) to actually be playing the game in the first place and 2) to not read and trust the instructions printed on the game that clearly tell you if you have won or not. If I happen to purchase a winning jackpot lottery ticket and confirm the fact that it is a winner by going to the website and/or the lottery line (I don't buy newspapers on a daily basis so I wouldn't check it that way; I get my news from the internet news sites for the cost of my internet connection), I would follow the claim directions to go to the designated lottery office to claim my prize (and yes I would set up a corporate entity so that I could have some level of privacy and legal protection by claiming it via that entity instead of in my own name). But I digress...DUMB and DUMBER: THE FEMALE VERSION!!! And who said that women are smarter than men?!!!! Come on all you feminists...let me have it!!!
Believe it or not, when I was having a cup of coffee this morning (trying to stay warm) I thought of this story. Although I still think she's telling the truth, why in the world would she send someone to a convenience store after winning $20,000?
So, although I still think this is a sad story about a friend's trust, she should have used better judgment. Still, who among us hasn't done something irresponsible?
If the store manager didn't tell the police that a woman validated a scratch-off worth $20,000 I'd wonder about the entire story.
I'm not so sure this woman will collect the money. She didn't sign it, right? I mean, if I walk into my regional Lottery Office today with a winning scratch-off ticket, do I have to remember exactly where I bought it? Yesterday I bought my FL Lotto tickets at a Mobil station when I was getting gas. The night before I think I bought my Fantasy-5 and MegaMoney tickets at Publix, but I'm not really sure. Maybe I went to 7-Eleven instead.
Maybe the bottom line is how deeply the police and/or the Lottery want to pursue this matter. I mean, this isn't CSI or Criminal Minds. I'm sure she left fingerprints on the ticket, and a cell phone call can be traced, etc. I'm only thinking of this because, when my home was burglarized, the local cops didn't do a thing. They acted as if I inconvenienced them.
A lottery ticket that is printed by a terminal will had a number or code that identify the retailer who sold it and a scratch off ticket will have a code that identify the roll it came from and the lottery commission will have a record of the retailer who sold that roll of tickets.
Now that there's suspicion that the ticket was stolen, the person turning in that ticket will have to come up with a believable story that checks out and risk going to jail for a while if they fail. Chances are if the thieves have any brains at all they will not even try to make a claim and the prize will go unclaimed unless the commission decides the victim story makes sense and give it to her.
I don't understand why so many people are so caught up in "verifying" that the ticket is a winner before claiming it. Sure, there are extremely rare cases where the ticket wasn't actually winner, but 99.9% of the time, the ticket is correct. If I have a Powerball ticket that matches all 6 numbers that were drawn the night before, I'm not going to drive to some local store to have it "verified". I'm driving to lottery Headquarters and they can verify it there at the time I claim the prize.