Supermarket employee pocketed tens of thousands in quiet scam
By Kate Northrop
DUNDEE, U.K. — A supermarket worker is facing prison after getting caught scamming the UK National Lottery of nearly £50,000 (US$66,993) using winning lottery tickets.
Melanie Davies, 35, of Brechin, Angus, admitted to carrying out a personal con against the National Lottery, in which she pocketed roughly £47,000 (US$62,969) using winning tickets and false reporting practices.
According to the Dundee Sheriff Court, Davies was employed as a cashier at the Asda Superstore on Milton of Craigie Road South in Dundee between August 2022 and July 2023 when she committed the fraud.
When a player brings in a winning ticket with a prize valued under a certain amount, the retailer pays out the prize in cash. The National Lottery then reimburses retailers for the cash prize payouts.
Davies' scheme involved falsely reporting claimed prize amounts to the National Lottery. She admitted to overreporting the number to the Lottery by pretending that higher amounts were to be paid out on winning tickets. She would keep the difference between the actual amount and the reimbursement from the Lottery.
"Davies was then skimming off the extra amount in cash from each of the manipulated tickets, while the winning customers got the proper amount they were due," a source close to the case said. "It seems [like] a very simple con, and you would have thought that the supermarket or National Lottery might have picked up on what she was doing a bit earlier than they did."
She was originally accused of stealing more than £52,000 (US$69,679), but the Crown accepted her guilty plea to taking £47,000.
Public Prosecutor Sam Craib told the court that Davies had no prior convictions, but more details of the fraud would be revealed at her next court appearance.
"It's quite a lot of money," Sheriff Neil Kinnear told Davies. "Reports will address the various sentencing options, such as community payback, or imprisonment at one end of the scale. If there is something going on in the background of your life, then you need to tell them about that."
Kinnear deferred sentencing until November 4 to run background reports.
Melanie !!! You little tart you..
hehehe was bound to happen sooner or later
There is a missing part to this story. HOW was she able to report more winners than she had? Maybe in a few months after they have fully closed the 'loophole' we will find out.
What kind of lottery software were they using that they didn't detect the discrepancy for a full year? Mabye they were using the honour system.
It sounds like, in the UK or that particular store, when reporting a winning ticket to the National Lottery board for payment reimbursement, the store clerk does not have to attach the already paid out winning ticket to their report. This way the store clerk can just write in any amount without proof to be reimbursed to the store. The store clerk than pockets the difference.
Yes, it does sound like they are using the honor system. I have always thought when a winning ticket is paid out to a customer over a certain amount, the winning ticket is supposed to be attached to the reimbursement report as proof that the correct amount is to be reimbursed. Clearly this was not being done in that particular store. Is is definitely strange that the clerk was about to get away with doing it for so long without being caught.
She probably tried it out on a lower prize ticket starting out to see if it worked out in her favor
(Say she claimed the winning amout was $200 Euros when the actual amount should have been $100 Euros)
If she got caught,she would claim she made a mistake.
Since nothing happened, she kept this up over and over for almost a year
Not sure what the max payout available in cash in the UK is but it could add up easily over 11 months
It all depends on how many tickets she claimed
Just doing the math it averaged ~6,000 US/Monthly over 11 Mos.
You never think you'll get caught after so long
Oh Mel
Greed caught up to ya lassie