An honest Indian-American convenience store owner in the small US town of Southwick in Massachusetts gave back to a woman customer a USD 1 million worth lottery ticket after she had discarded it as "it didn't look like a winner".

Massachusetts resident Lea Rose Fiega had purchased a Diamond Millions scratch-off in March at a store Lucky Stop in Southwick – a town in Hampden County - where she was a regular.

“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 said.

But the ticket wasn’t fully scratched off and it sat in a heap in the store for 10 days until Abhi Shah, son of the store owners, stumbled upon the unfinished USD 30 ticket in the trash.

“I scratched the number and it was USD 1 million underneath,” Shah told local TV station WWLP.

The family recognized Fiega, but was in a quandary over whether to return it to the customer or not.

Lucky Spot owner Maunish Shah said his son then called family seniors in India. “He called my grandparents in India, they said, ‘Give it back, we don’t want that money,’” Maunish Shah said.

The younger Shah went to Fiega’s office and asked the woman to come to the store as his parents wanted to talk to her.

 “I said ‘I’m working,’ and he said, ‘No, you have to come over,’” Fiega said.

“So I went over there and that’s when they told me,” Fiega added. “I was in total disbelief.  I cried, I hugged them.”

Abhi Shah, whose mother had sold the ticket to Fiega, told WWLP what it was like to have USD 1 million and give it away.

“I mean, I had USD 1 million in my hand and on the other hand I wanted to do something good,” he was quoted by New York Post as saying.

The store was richer by USD 10,000 paid by the lottery organizers as a bonus. Fiega said she also gave the family some cash as a mark of gratitude.

(SAM)