Is There A Lottery Thief At Fast Stop Market?
Lately I’ve been visiting the Fast Stop Market on Monterey & Vineyard much more frequently. This is a result of the fact that the best Subway in the Bay Area is located in the same shopping center and I’ve been on the Subway diet for the last few weeks. It’s your basic mini-mart, but I was glad to visit in order to support the local businesses (not to mention they always had my supplies in stock). However, they shall be visited by me no more…
You see, I spend a few hundred dollars on the California Lottery each week. Scratchers, SuperLotto Plus, MegaMillions, Daily 3, Fantasy 5, and the occasional game of Hot Spot as well. In other words, the only game I don’t play is the Daily Derby. Basically whenever I’m in a mini-mart or liquor store I’ll buy some tix. However, I almost always just save up the winners and cash them in together at one shop. While rearranging my room this weekend I came across a few winning scratchers and decided to cash them in at the Fast Stop Market on my evening Subway run. Very bad idea.
Problem One – Poor Customer Service
Despite the lottery terminal clearly displaying that I had won a combined total of $19.00, the clerk refused to give me my money, insisting that I must spend $10 of it on tickets because two of my scratchers were ticket wins instead of cash wins. This is ridiculous. 99% of California lottery retailers allow ticket wins to be cashed in as cash. When I was working in a liquor store myself (a couple years back) I asked the regional lottery rep about this practice (we did it gladly for our customers) and he claimed there was absolutely no problem with it whatsoever.
Insisting that winners accept payment in tickets is simply a way for the lottery retailer to once again capture the 6 percent profit they make on selling lottery tickets. Six percent may not sound like much, and it’s not, but they count on people visiting the shop for lottery tickets and making other purchases as well. Something which I typically do. Well, I hope the Fast Stop Market invests the $0.60 they got from me tonight well, as they’re now going to lose out on the couple hundred bucks I spend on other stuff in their shop each week.
Problem Two – Possible Theft Of Winnings
Whenever a clerk runs a lottery ticket through the terminal a small l a small receipt is printed out stating how much the customer won (if anything). The California Lottery Commission strongly encourages players to keep these receipts for two reasons-
- They make tracking wins and losses much easier for tax purposes (gambling losses are deductible from gambling winnings), and
- They ensure that the clerk isn’t telling you that you have not won when you have or underreporting your win. Imagine hitting a multi-million dollar lottery win on a quick pick and being told you only won something like $20. It’s happened more than once.
It is for both of these reasons that I always collect my winning receipts. However, this clerk would not allow me to even see them, much less keep them. He claimed they were his. Um, no. the terminal is his and can print any and all information he desires, The receipts are for the customer to know that the clerk isn’t ripping them off.
So now the Fast Stop will not be receiving any revenue from m, my clients, or anyone else who genuinely cares about customer service. Not only was the clerk rude to me, he blatantly lied to my face and is acting in a manner that has been associated with stealing from customers. I guess I’ll stick to The Country Store where not one of these things has ever occured in my two years of regular visits.
Tags: California Lottery, Fast Stop Market, lottery scratchers, Retail, shopping
I would be contacting lottery officials. This is not right.
Karen’s last blog post..Finding Out Who Called
They have been Karen. Not only did I send a letter to the state Lottery Commission, but I also journeyed back to my old shop in San Jose and spoke directly to the area lottery representative there.