N.C. store owner accused of stealing winning lottery ticket

Comment #22

dk1421 — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:35:41 GMT

You know, you are absolutely right. That's the entire reason why people have the clerks check - sheer doggedness and being discouraged.

Comment #21

maringoman — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:08:58 GMT

I cant stress this enough, CHECK YOUR TICKETS PEOPLE!

I know by constantly losing you get so discouraged that you keep buying the tickets out of sheer doggedness and just hand them to the store clerk to check them for you. Dont do that.

Comment #20

beaudad — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:03:25 GMT

well Johnnyb......I think the last name Patel.........is like Smith in this country....this is the 3rd story with a person involved with a party store who's name is Patel.....so what have I learned from this.......

1.....check your ticket before going into the store

2.....check your ticket before going into the store

3.....check your ticket before going into the store

I also copy my winning tickets with a scanner at home........

beaudad........

Comment #19

Kidzmom — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:12:05 GMT

A sad story with a happy ending..I am sure this isn't the only NC store with these type of crooked clerks.

Comment #18

dk1421 — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:54:29 GMT

I have to say, this does make me happy with NC lottery. They caught someone all on their own. Most of the time, someone calls and complains. This time, it was them. AND they found the person whose ticket it really was.

Way to go, NC!! Woohoo

Comment #17

KY Floyd — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:05:56 GMT

You really think your average convenience store saves surveillance video for 6 months or more? What's far more likely is that they simply asked Patel where he bought the ticket and he couldn't give them a very good answer. At some point they would have asked him about playing those numbers before, and if he came at all close to giving them the answer that they already had they would have asked him where he typically played them. It's pretty tough to give good answers to those questions when it's... [ More ]

Comment #16

jarasan — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:55:46 GMT

She played with regularity, and they have the video, all they had to do was wait for her to come and purchase her tix again she probably bought them at the same time also. It was a very nice surprise to have the lottery people looking out for this chicanery.

Comment #15

butterflykt — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 17:14:57 GMT

WOW!!! Good thing about learning to trust your senses.

Comment #14

OldSchoolPa — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:24:50 GMT

I also think the same thing about the people who drop $20 or $50 for a single raffle ticket only to never claim the $1,000 prize their ticket won....I see such listings in Illinois many months after the raffle. Why waste $20 when you don't even bother to go pickup your $1,000 prize? Heck, even if a person owes back taxes or child support, even in excess of $1,000, at least that is about $750 less that they will end up paying from their wages.

But to the main point I noted from this story...h... [ More ]

Comment #13

ayenowitall — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:12:06 GMT

Sign the back of your tickets. Check your own numbers. How hard is that?

Lottery drawings and results are available on TV, radio, online, in newspapers, and by telephone. Many retailers even have counter scanners at which you can check your own tickets. Why set yourself up to become a victim?

Whenever I present a ticket to a lottery agent, I already know it's a winner and I know how much I've won. If they try to tell me the ticket is not a winner, believe me, I get my ticket back and re-ch... [ More ]

Comment #12

Tenaj — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 02:12:40 GMT

Good Job NC Education Lottery

Comment #11

PERDUE — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 01:48:46 GMT

I had no idea I had won, Parker said. I didn't check my tickets anymore. I just let them scan them in and tell me.

WTF!!! Why in he11 does this idiot play the lottery?! It is stupid azz players like this that pisses me off. Why play if you are too dam* lazy to check your fu**ing ticket!

I expect the retailers to be crooked somewhere along the line, but when the lottery players are too sorry to check their own tickets then they deserve to be ripped off as often as possible.

This ding-ba... [ More ]

Comment #10

sully16 — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:31:49 GMT

Congratulations to Miss Parker and the NC Lottery, job well done.

on another note ...bye bye Patel..

Comment #9

petergrfn — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:19:22 GMT

Kinda makes you wonder how often people aren't checking their tickets and don't even know that a store owner has taken their winning ticket and given them a paltry few bucks in return.....Glad to hear she got her winnings in the end

Comment #8

Redbonec4 — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:11:05 GMT

This is so funny to me because I was in that store Sunday night playing my tickets.. I do not normally go there but the BP station was packed... I stopped going to this store about 2 years ago because I believed that he was shady..... Boy was I right... He had some winning scratch off tickets hung up in the store and I asked him if he had any big winners there and he said NO... \Now I see why... I hope they nail his ass to the wall..

I knew something was not right with him.. I have learned to... [ More ]

Comment #7

RJOh — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:52:07 GMT

You would think state lotteries could eliminate this problem by requiring stores to return losing tickets to their customers after they are scanned. The winner probably thought buying her ticket and having it scanned at different locations eliminated the chances of someone stealing her ticket if it was a winner.

At the stores where I buy my tickets, some of the clerks always return my tickets after they are scanned even the winners. I've asked the other clerks who don't and they've said they... [ More ]

Comment #6

JonnyBgood07 — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:45:56 GMT

How is it possible everyone is named patel?....no matter where I see convenience store stories from around the country or here ,that same last name is always there.

lmmigration really needs to look into this stuff

Comment #5

rdgrnr — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:38:55 GMT

Very.

Comment #4

JPJohnson — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:29:37 GMT

They said how they found her in the beginning of the article:

Kecia Nehring Parker's favorite lottery numbers turned out to be lucky in more than one way.

Not only did they win her a prize of nearly $88,000, but her clockwork regularity in playing them enabled North Carolina State Education Lottery investigators to track her down after they took the winning ticket from a convenience store owner accused of trying to steal her jackpot.

This artcle is somewhat scant on the detai... [ More ]

Comment #3

rdgrnr — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:23:47 GMT

Way to go NC!

Now lock that SOB up for a loooong time!

Hey Tennessee! Are you paying attention!

Nah, didn't think so.

Comment #2

savagegoose — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:02:31 GMT

ahh prob also looked at video footage of when the winning ticket was bought and compared the two images.

how exactly they tracked her down i dunno

Comment #1

griff159 — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:24:27 GMT

A happy ending indeed! But it amazes me that she did'nt check her own numbers to see if she had won. Never leave that up to retailers.

N.C. store owner accused of stealing winning lottery ticket

Lottery Post — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:18:23 GMT

Kecia Nehring Parker's favorite lottery numbers turned out to be lucky in more than one way.

Not only did they win her a prize of nearly $88,000, but her clockwork regularity in playing them enabled North Carolina State Education Lottery investigators to track her down after they took the winning ticket from a convenience store owner accused of trying to steal her jackpot.

I was very surprised, she said Friday. But it's definitely a good surprise.

Dunn police say that when Parker brou... [ More ]