New Delhi: An Indian-American family living in Massachusetts is being hailed for returning a $1 million lottery ticket to the woman who had bought it.
The family owns a grocery store in Massachusetts. The ticket belongs to Leas Rose Fiega, who purchased the ticket from Aruna Shah, the store owner.
"I was a millionaire for a night," the owner's son Abhi Shah said, who discovered the winning ticket and returned it to the woman, a news agency quoted him saying.
Although he had thought of buying a Tesla car, but then decided to return the ticket. He said, "Who does that? They're great people. I am beyond blessed."
Manish Shah, who owns the Lucky Spot store in Springfield, Massachusetts, told the news agency that after the ticket was found, "we didn't sleep two nights." But they decided to consult his parents in India.
"My grandmother said, 'let's not keep the ticket. It's not right. Just give it back to them. If it's in your luck, you'll get it anyhow, "Abhi Shah said.
"He came to my office and said, 'my mom and dad would like to see you'. I said, 'I'm working, and he said, 'no, you have to come over. So I went over there, and that's when they told me. I was in total disbelief. I cried, I hugged them," Fiega told the news agency.
The Massachusetts State Lottery's Diamond Millions of tickets have squares with hidden numbers, and when the coverings are scratched off, they reveal the digits that could be the winning combination. But Fiega had not scratched the squares properly.
"I was in a hurry on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it, and it didn't look like a winner, so I handed it over to them to throw away," Fiega, who had purchased the ticket from Abhi Shah's mother, said.
"One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and (noticed) that she didn't scratch the (right) number. I crossed the number, and it was $1 million underneath, "Abhi Shah said.
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