A store clerk in the state of Florida has been arrested after she tried to steal a winning lottery scratch card. Landing a big win with the lottery is difficult enough, but it seems like claiming your winnings can be just as difficult if the store clerks are working against you. But, this is exactly what happened to one customer who went into a Winn-Dixie liquor store in Fort Meyers, Florida, to check on their scratch card.
A store clerk in Florida has been charged with grand larceny after she was caught trying to steal a winning scratch card from a customer, worth $600.
Store Clerk Tries Stealing $600 Scratch Card
The customer entered the store in order to check if their scratch card ticket had won anything. The store clerk took the ticket from them and scanned it in. After scanning, the clerk realized the ticket had won $600. Instead of paying the customer, she took the ticket for herself and told the customer they’d only won $5, paying them out of her own purse.
Things didn’t turn out well for the dishonest store clerk though. The customer was actually an undercover agent from the Florida Lottery Commission’s security division. They had entered the liquor store to do a spot check. The store clerk has since been arrested and charged with grand larceny.
Protecting Your Winnings
This will probably make many wonder how common it is for something like this to happen. While most believe that those in the customer service industry will be doing what’s best for the customer, this incident proves that it’s not always the case. One trick that people can do is to write their name on the back of the ticket before allowing anyone to scan it.
Another option is to just remove the temptation of the staff completely. People can scan their own tickets, using the store’s electronic checkers. This is perhaps the safest option as no one wants to get lucky, only to have their winning ticket stolen away from them. At least, in this case, the dishonest store clerk was caught and has been fired.
