Claimed $187,000 in winnings from stolen scratch-offs
A clerk at Local Yokel food mart has been arrested for stealing Florida Lottery scratch-off tickets and raking in $187,000 in winnings.
Michelle Joan Despain, 35, of Daphne, Ala., is accused of stealing books of tickets and claiming them in Escambia County and in Orlando during a family vacation, according to the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office.
The tickets she stole would have sold for more than $243,000.
Despain's husband, 33-year-old Raymond S. Despain, has also been arrested.
The couple scratched off tickets at home and then redeemed the winning ones at Circle K stores, a Sheriff's Office news release stated.
Investigators say the scheme has been going on for at least three years. They're looking for more stolen money because Michelle Despain had worked at Local Yokel since Sept. 2000.
The Despains were being held in the Santa Rosa County Jail on $50,000 bond each.
Michelle Despain is charged with grand theft over $100,000, organized dealing in stolen property and scheming to defraud.
Raymond Despain is charged with conspiracy to commit grand theft, organized dealing in stolen property, scheming to defraud and filing a false Lottery claim.
The Yokel store(s) must have terrible controls on inventory....243,000 is a lot of books of tickets.
Also - FL had near 50% payouts until several years ago. Even at their current level of payout I find it hard to believe 243k worth of tickets produced over 180k in winnings...that would be about 75%.
"Also - FL had near 50% payouts until several years ago. Even at their current level of payout I find it hard to believe 243k worth of tickets produced over 180k in winnings...that would be about 75%."
You wouldn't expect Florida Lottery to say that $243,000 worth of scratch-offs only paid back a few dollars, would you? After all, this story may be about a couple of crooks but it also tells the honest players the kinds of paybacks they can expect if they buy a scratch-off. I'm surprised they didn't accused them of cashing them it for $500,000.
What I don't understand is what makes people think they can get away with stealing lottery tickets. Do they think they are smart or everybody else is stupid.
What I don't understand is what makes people think they can get away with stealing lottery tickets. Do they think they are smart or everybody else is stupid.
I think some people are so desperate for money that they think their "plans" of ripping of the lottery will work out. It seems in most cases it doesn't work.
I can't say if it's really true because no charges were filed, but a former neighbor of mine (not a personal friend) was fired from a local 7-11 for stealing lottery tickets. She denied it. She was never reported for the crime, so that's why I sort of believed her. Plus, why would anyone admit to being fired from a convenient store for stealing? However, I think sometimes employees look at the tickets as some kind of perk or benefit. I'm not saying it's right (of course it isn't!) but there must be millions of people who take pens and paper from their offices all the time or make long distance calls, etc. One thing she admitted to was eating a hot dog once in a while instead of throwing it into the trash, which I guess they have to do after they've been on sale for a certain time. The management called it stealing and she said "but it was trash." What's really stupid on her part is that they have video surveillance cameras all over the store. Again, I never said she was a personal friend! LOL
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Feb 8, 2008
I can't say if it's really true because no charges were filed, but a former neighbor of mine (not a personal friend) was fired from a local 7-11 for stealing lottery tickets. She denied it. She was never reported for the crime, so that's why I sort of believed her. Plus, why would anyone admit to being fired from a convenient store for stealing? However, I think sometimes employees look at the tickets as some kind of perk or benefit. I'm not saying it's right (of course it isn't!) but there must be millions of people who take pens and paper from their offices all the time or make long distance calls, etc. One thing she admitted to was eating a hot dog once in a while instead of throwing it into the trash, which I guess they have to do after they've been on sale for a certain time. The management called it stealing and she said "but it was trash." What's really stupid on her part is that they have video surveillance cameras all over the store. Again, I never said she was a personal friend! LOL
We had a girl was stealing tickets at our store. How the owner found out who it was? Another store owner called to find out where the winning tickets were registered. Why? Because the girl never bought any there, only cashed in the tickets. So he found out that they were registered at our store, then called our owner and describe the women. Our owner went down to the store and picked up the cashed in tickets and watched the videos. It was a shame that these girls did this to a boss who is so nice.
We had a girl was stealing tickets at our store. How the owner found out who it was? Another store owner called to find out where the winning tickets were registered. Why? Because the girl never bought any there, only cashed in the tickets. So he found out that they were registered at our store, then called our owner and describe the women. Our owner went down to the store and picked up the cashed in tickets and watched the videos. It was a shame that these girls did this to a boss who is so nice.
tntea, I never worked in a convenient store, so I'm not sure..but aren't tickets like inventory? I mean, if I were working at a furniture store and a bedroom set was missing, it would be obvious that someone stole it or didn't turn in the invoice and pocketed the money. However, a small lamp or accessory might be easier to hide, but it still gets counted and would be noticed. I realize a ticket is small and easy to pocket, but I assume the store pays for them and has to keep track of the quantity, right? Would this woman have eventually been caught anyway? I'm just wondering how the thieves in this article got away with stealing "books of tickets" for 3 years.
We had a girl was stealing tickets at our store. How the owner found out who it was? Another store owner called to find out where the winning tickets were registered. Why? Because the girl never bought any there, only cashed in the tickets. So he found out that they were registered at our store, then called our owner and describe the women. Our owner went down to the store and picked up the cashed in tickets and watched the videos. It was a shame that these girls did this to a boss who is so nice.
Maybe she should have waited after the closing of her shifts
and scavenged through the trash cans for winning tickets. It's a viable option.
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Feb 8, 2008
tntea, I never worked in a convenient store, so I'm not sure..but aren't tickets like inventory? I mean, if I were working at a furniture store and a bedroom set was missing, it would be obvious that someone stole it or didn't turn in the invoice and pocketed the money. However, a small lamp or accessory might be easier to hide, but it still gets counted and would be noticed. I realize a ticket is small and easy to pocket, but I assume the store pays for them and has to keep track of the quantity, right? Would this woman have eventually been caught anyway? I'm just wondering how the thieves in this article got away with stealing "books of tickets" for 3 years.
The store owner must not have had any controls in place to keep track of his Lottery Tickets. One store I shop in keeps track of the serial numbers of the tickets (logs the next ticket to be sold in each roll: at the start of business and at the end of busness) then checks the days receipts against the number of tickets sold. The book of tickets has to be activated before being put out for sale. The inventory of tickets not yet put out for sale/activated are kept under lock and key which few people have access to.
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Feb 8, 2008
tntea, I never worked in a convenient store, so I'm not sure..but aren't tickets like inventory? I mean, if I were working at a furniture store and a bedroom set was missing, it would be obvious that someone stole it or didn't turn in the invoice and pocketed the money. However, a small lamp or accessory might be easier to hide, but it still gets counted and would be noticed. I realize a ticket is small and easy to pocket, but I assume the store pays for them and has to keep track of the quantity, right? Would this woman have eventually been caught anyway? I'm just wondering how the thieves in this article got away with stealing "books of tickets" for 3 years.
Yes, the books are inventory. However, when this happened lottery was new to TN. Our store is on the AL/TN stateline so we were processing a lot of tickets. We were instructed to activate the books and keep them moving. The owner did not have a balance/check system set up to know if tickets were sold or taken. She knew through the lottery account something wasn't adding up.
This went on for nearly a year. I am not sure but she may have called around to different retailers in the area and few beyond and alerting to check for serial numbers of some books.
The system she uses is better now. Lots of paper work on her part.
Quote: Originally posted by Raven62 on Feb 8, 2008
The store owner must not have had any controls in place to keep track of his Lottery Tickets. One store I shop in keeps track of the serial numbers of the tickets (logs the next ticket to be sold in each roll: at the start of business and at the end of busness) then checks the days receipts against the number of tickets sold. The book of tickets has to be activated before being put out for sale. The inventory of tickets not yet put out for sale/activated are kept under lock and key which few people have access to.
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Feb 8, 2008
tntea, I never worked in a convenient store, so I'm not sure..but aren't tickets like inventory? I mean, if I were working at a furniture store and a bedroom set was missing, it would be obvious that someone stole it or didn't turn in the invoice and pocketed the money. However, a small lamp or accessory might be easier to hide, but it still gets counted and would be noticed. I realize a ticket is small and easy to pocket, but I assume the store pays for them and has to keep track of the quantity, right? Would this woman have eventually been caught anyway? I'm just wondering how the thieves in this article got away with stealing "books of tickets" for 3 years.
If they were doing a really good job of tracking inventory they'd know when a piece of Bazooka bubble gum was missing, even if they couldn't determine what happened to it. Plenty of businesses deal with inventory that's much harder to account for. In addition, plenty of people run reasonably successful businesses without managing them nearly as well as possible, and accounting and inventory control are often weak areas.
A long time ago I worked in a business with old mechanical cash registers. The registers had two settings for totaling sales at the end of the day. One kept a running total, so that each day's total was the sum of all previous days' totals and the current day's total. The other setting reset the register to start from zero. The owners were largely clueless, and the cashout procedure was to reset the totals at the end of each day, which meant that they had no real record of what was rung up during the day, since it was possible to reset the total at any point. Through a stroke of luck (mostly just a fortunate accident) they discovered that an employee who worked evenings sometimes reset the register after making a sale, but they never knew how much had been taken.
That we see a lot of stories about workers stealing huge numbers of tickets over a period of time suggest that a lot of stores don't do a very good job of tracking their ticket inventory. Of course it's also possible that with a few people using the same register a lot of it is buried in cash drawers that come up short on a regular basis. God knows that nowadays most clerks can't count change if the register doesn't tell them how much it is.
KY Floyd writes: " God knows that nowadays most clerks can't count change if the register doesn't tell them how much it is. "
Gee, I wonder what it's like to go through life feeling superior to the rest of the world. I'm not saying you're totally wrong, but sometimes people are very judgmental when they're being helped in a store. I'm well educated and I've budgeted millions for a corporation, but I'm sure it's much different when someone works in a noisy environment with lots of chatter and distractions helping one customer after another at a fast pace.
"Also - FL had near 50% payouts until several years ago. Even at their current level of payout I find it hard to believe 243k worth of tickets produced over 180k in winnings...that would be about 75%."
You wouldn't expect Florida Lottery to say that $243,000 worth of scratch-offs only paid back a few dollars, would you? After all, this story may be about a couple of crooks but it also tells the honest players the kinds of paybacks they can expect if they buy a scratch-off. I'm surprised they didn't accused them of cashing them it for $500,000.
When I read this story, my first reaction was "Well at least that tells me now that there really are large winning payoffs in the scratchers. I was always sceptical of them but now i know- well except for the clerks that keep a running count on the loosers. But I'd rather have the clerkskeep a running count than to have someone win from stealing tickets and never get caught. Good for them, teach them a lesson, one that they should have know already.
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Feb 9, 2008
KY Floyd writes: " God knows that nowadays most clerks can't count change if the register doesn't tell them how much it is. "
Gee, I wonder what it's like to go through life feeling superior to the rest of the world. I'm not saying you're totally wrong, but sometimes people are very judgmental when they're being helped in a store. I'm well educated and I've budgeted millions for a corporation, but I'm sure it's much different when someone works in a noisy environment with lots of chatter and distractions helping one customer after another at a fast pace.
You either know how to count back the change or you don't.
Those that know how doesn't need the machine to tell them what to return..
Those that don't will slow a line down staring as if they were a deer in the road.
You either know how to count back the change or you don't.
Those that know how doesn't need the machine to tell them what to return..
Those that don't will slow a line down staring as if they were a deer in the road.
Tntea,
I dont mean to sound like i'm superior either but you're right. I go to places and think " how did you get this job? And don't try to give the clerk $5.01 if the bill is $2.26, they'll be screaming for the manager. Sure there are things I cant do, but the basics? come on. But they can count those lottery tickets losers and will definately know when to purchase (or steal) the winners that's for sure.
Quote: Originally posted by lottocalgal on Feb 9, 2008
Tntea,
I dont mean to sound like i'm superior either but you're right. I go to places and think " how did you get this job? And don't try to give the clerk $5.01 if the bill is $2.26, they'll be screaming for the manager. Sure there are things I cant do, but the basics? come on. But they can count those lottery tickets losers and will definately know when to purchase (or steal) the winners that's for sure.
Although I worked for a corporation handling millions, when I moved here I got into retail. So regarding the $5.01, as good as I am in math, I still might use a small calculator. No matter where I've worked I always had a couple of cheap calculators even if I had to buy one. Usually it was because I wrote out an invoice with multiple items and had to add tax, but still, it only takes about 10 seconds to enter $5.01 minus $2.26 = $2.75. When you are working with money all day long and running around a store from room to room, answering phones, placing orders, handling returns, customer complaints, etc., it is more important to be quick & efficient than to worry about looking like a math genius. Maybe you are talking about being in a store where the people are just standing behind a counter chewing gum, but sometimes there's a lot of multi-tasking. Tntea has more experience in convenience stores, since I rarely dealt with cash, but I try not to judge. However, more than once when I was setting up a delivery, a client spelled "street" or "lane" for me because I couldn't hear and asked him/her to repeat his address. I'm sure that person went home, got on an internet board and told everyone about a dumb blond at a store who couldn't spell.
They don't Look Like Happy Winners!
The tickets she stole would have sold for more than $243,000.
$187,000 in winnings.
Net: Minus $56,000!
Unless you hit the Jackpot: It's a losing proposition.
In stealing the tickets, if they hadn't gotten caught, they would have profitted $187,000.00.
But how in the world could these people sleep? What nerve!! Family vacation on stolen money!!
These people must be career thieves.
lmao i was thinking the same thing when i was reading it
When you're talking that kind of money: How can you not get caught?
Beretta: Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time!
Hmmm, sounds like they stole a huge chunk of tickets, wonder how this changed the actual game odds for all the honest players on those games.
The Yokel store(s) must have terrible controls on inventory....243,000 is a lot of books of tickets.
Also - FL had near 50% payouts until several years ago. Even at their current level of payout I find it hard to believe 243k worth of tickets produced over 180k in winnings...that would be about 75%.
"Also - FL had near 50% payouts until several years ago. Even at their current level of payout I find it hard to believe 243k worth of tickets produced over 180k in winnings...that would be about 75%."
You wouldn't expect Florida Lottery to say that $243,000 worth of scratch-offs only paid back a few dollars, would you? After all, this story may be about a couple of crooks but it also tells the honest players the kinds of paybacks they can expect if they buy a scratch-off. I'm surprised they didn't accused them of cashing them it for $500,000.
It changed the odds for other players exactly the same as if the store had sold the tickets instead of having them stolen.
I think some people are so desperate for money that they think their "plans" of ripping of the lottery will work out. It seems in most cases it doesn't work.
I can't say if it's really true because no charges were filed, but a former neighbor of mine (not a personal friend) was fired from a local 7-11 for stealing lottery tickets. She denied it. She was never reported for the crime, so that's why I sort of believed her. Plus, why would anyone admit to being fired from a convenient store for stealing? However, I think sometimes employees look at the tickets as some kind of perk or benefit. I'm not saying it's right (of course it isn't!) but there must be millions of people who take pens and paper from their offices all the time or make long distance calls, etc. One thing she admitted to was eating a hot dog once in a while instead of throwing it into the trash, which I guess they have to do after they've been on sale for a certain time. The management called it stealing and she said "but it was trash." What's really stupid on her part is that they have video surveillance cameras all over the store. Again, I never said she was a personal friend! LOL
We had a girl was stealing tickets at our store. How the owner found out who it was? Another store owner called to find out where the winning tickets were registered. Why? Because the girl never bought any there, only cashed in the tickets. So he found out that they were registered at our store, then called our owner and describe the women. Our owner went down to the store and picked up the cashed in tickets and watched the videos. It was a shame that these girls did this to a boss who is so nice.
tntea, I never worked in a convenient store, so I'm not sure..but aren't tickets like inventory? I mean, if I were working at a furniture store and a bedroom set was missing, it would be obvious that someone stole it or didn't turn in the invoice and pocketed the money. However, a small lamp or accessory might be easier to hide, but it still gets counted and would be noticed. I realize a ticket is small and easy to pocket, but I assume the store pays for them and has to keep track of the quantity, right? Would this woman have eventually been caught anyway? I'm just wondering how the thieves in this article got away with stealing "books of tickets" for 3 years.
Maybe she should have waited after the closing of her shifts
and scavenged through the trash cans for winning tickets. It's a viable option.
The store owner must not have had any controls in place to keep track of his Lottery Tickets. One store I shop in keeps track of the serial numbers of the tickets (logs the next ticket to be sold in each roll: at the start of business and at the end of busness) then checks the days receipts against the number of tickets sold. The book of tickets has to be activated before being put out for sale. The inventory of tickets not yet put out for sale/activated are kept under lock and key which few people have access to.
Yes, the books are inventory. However, when this happened lottery was new to TN. Our store is on the AL/TN stateline so we were processing a lot of tickets. We were instructed to activate the books and keep them moving. The owner did not have a balance/check system set up to know if tickets were sold or taken. She knew through the lottery account something wasn't adding up.
This went on for nearly a year. I am not sure but she may have called around to different retailers in the area and few beyond and alerting to check for serial numbers of some books.
The system she uses is better now. Lots of paper work on her part.
That's how it is set up now.
If they were doing a really good job of tracking inventory they'd know when a piece of Bazooka bubble gum was missing, even if they couldn't determine what happened to it. Plenty of businesses deal with inventory that's much harder to account for. In addition, plenty of people run reasonably successful businesses without managing them nearly as well as possible, and accounting and inventory control are often weak areas.
A long time ago I worked in a business with old mechanical cash registers. The registers had two settings for totaling sales at the end of the day. One kept a running total, so that each day's total was the sum of all previous days' totals and the current day's total. The other setting reset the register to start from zero. The owners were largely clueless, and the cashout procedure was to reset the totals at the end of each day, which meant that they had no real record of what was rung up during the day, since it was possible to reset the total at any point. Through a stroke of luck (mostly just a fortunate accident) they discovered that an employee who worked evenings sometimes reset the register after making a sale, but they never knew how much had been taken.
That we see a lot of stories about workers stealing huge numbers of tickets over a period of time suggest that a lot of stores don't do a very good job of tracking their ticket inventory. Of course it's also possible that with a few people using the same register a lot of it is buried in cash drawers that come up short on a regular basis. God knows that nowadays most clerks can't count change if the register doesn't tell them how much it is.
KY Floyd writes: " God knows that nowadays most clerks can't count change if the register doesn't tell them how much it is. "
Gee, I wonder what it's like to go through life feeling superior to the rest of the world. I'm not saying you're totally wrong, but sometimes people are very judgmental when they're being helped in a store. I'm well educated and I've budgeted millions for a corporation, but I'm sure it's much different when someone works in a noisy environment with lots of chatter and distractions helping one customer after another at a fast pace.
When I read this story, my first reaction was "Well at least that tells me now that there really are large winning payoffs in the scratchers. I was always sceptical of them but now i know- well except for the clerks that keep a running count on the loosers. But I'd rather have the clerkskeep a running count than to have someone win from stealing tickets and never get caught. Good for them, teach them a lesson, one that they should have know already.
You either know how to count back the change or you don't.
Those that know how doesn't need the machine to tell them what to return..
Those that don't will slow a line down staring as if they were a deer in the road.
Tntea,
I dont mean to sound like i'm superior either but you're right. I go to places and think " how did you get this job? And don't try to give the clerk $5.01 if the bill is $2.26, they'll be screaming for the manager. Sure there are things I cant do, but the basics? come on. But they can count those lottery tickets losers and will definately know when to purchase (or steal) the winners that's for sure.
Jailem!!!!
Although I worked for a corporation handling millions, when I moved here I got into retail. So regarding the $5.01, as good as I am in math, I still might use a small calculator. No matter where I've worked I always had a couple of cheap calculators even if I had to buy one. Usually it was because I wrote out an invoice with multiple items and had to add tax, but still, it only takes about 10 seconds to enter $5.01 minus $2.26 = $2.75. When you are working with money all day long and running around a store from room to room, answering phones, placing orders, handling returns, customer complaints, etc., it is more important to be quick & efficient than to worry about looking like a math genius. Maybe you are talking about being in a store where the people are just standing behind a counter chewing gum, but sometimes there's a lot of multi-tasking. Tntea has more experience in convenience stores, since I rarely dealt with cash, but I try not to judge. However, more than once when I was setting up a delivery, a client spelled "street" or "lane" for me because I couldn't hear and asked him/her to repeat his address. I'm sure that person went home, got on an internet board and told everyone about a dumb blond at a store who couldn't spell.
umm i got a question. where does it say in the article how they was finally caught?? i seemed to have missed it. i am not
saying that they are right for stealing the tickets,but the owner has to take some of the blame for allowing this kind
of theft to go on right under his or her nose for 3 years. unless the woman that was stealing was also in charge of the
lottery ticket inventory. i really would like to know more about this story because there just isnt enough information
here.