Can Lost Powerball Ticket Winner Finally Claim His $1 Million Prize? Man Tells His Story
Can Hung Nguyen claim his $1 million Powerball jackpot prize without the ticket he lost? Hung Nguyen (right) tells his story through an interpreter.Video: CBS
It's a familar story... a lost ticket and heartbreak when the prize can't be claimed. It happened recently to a Vietnamese mechanic who worked at an El Monte auto repair shop.
The expiry date on the ticket ran out on 12 Mar. 2015, but Hung Nguyen didn’t find out the ticket was a winner until months after the drawing when he returned from a trip to Vietnam.
Then he saw his face on the news after lottery officials released a video posted on YouTube, but realized he couldn't find his ticket.
He reportedly attempted to claim the prize at the Powerball Lottery’s Santa Fe Springs District Office, but he was not in physical possession of the winning ticket, according to Lottery spokesman Russ Lopez.
California State Lottery spokesman Russ Lopez.
"It's unfortunate that we were not able to locate the winning ticket, as we always strive to connect winners with their prizes," said Lopez.
"It came down to the ticket, and the man who came forward claimed that the ticket was lost and he was unable to produce it."
An interpreter for Hung, Eric Dang, said: "The moment he found out that he won, he was as happy as he can be."
He then realized he couldn't find the ticket. "When he came back, the supermarket clerk told him that he had won so he went home and tried to look for the ticket but he couldn't find it. He looked in his car. His house. All over. He still couldn't find it," the interpreter said.
The State Lottery district office in Santa Fe Springs.
Nguyen even tried going to the lottery office but, according to Powerball regulations, a prize can only be claimed if the winner presents the actual winning ticket.
And that's how it stands at the moment.
In a similar story, a mother-of-two from Canada was stunned when lottery officials knocked on her door and informed her she had won $50 Million in Canadian dollars (US$47 million).
Kathryn Jones, a 55-year-old married engineer, had bought the ticket in Cambridge, Ontario - then lost it.
When she heard about the unclaimed ticket through newscasts, she thought nothing more of it until she was confronted with the astounding news on her doorstep.
Source: CBS
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