Wanganui Winner Claims His $250,000

November 7, 2001

Wanganui has its $250,000 Kachingo! winner.

The married father of four and his wife celebrated their wedding anniversary on Monday (November 5) oblivious to the family's win.

They regularly shop at Woolworths Wanganui and the family had sat down to watch the Kachingo! draw live on TV2 on Sunday night. But none of their ticket game lines matched the winning numbers of the draw.

It was only when he and his son were cleaning out the family car on Tuesday that they discovered another Woolworths till receipt and Kachingo! ticket under the front seat.

"My son was about to throw it into the rubbish fire when I noticed the Kachingo! symbol and I yelled at him to stop," the winner said.

"I looked at the numbers and some looked familiar although the power number didn't look right."

The two then took the ticket inside the house but the piece of paper on which the family had written the winning numbers had been thrown in the household rubbish.

A mad scramble through two days refuse ensued before the paper bag with the numbers written on it was retrieved.

The winner rushed down to Woolworths Wanganui where the after hours duty manager contacted the Kachingo! organisers.

The winner said he didn't sleep well at all that night before making the six hour drive to Auckland today to collect his cheque.

Kachingo! spokesperson Mary Vance said everyone involved with the rewards scheme was "over the moon about our first big winner; it couldn't have gone to a more deserving family ". On his first visit to Auckland since "the Ranfurly Shield challenge of '87", the winner said he hadn't even thought about what to do with the funds.

"We'll discuss what to do as a family and I'll be taking advice but we are renting to buy our own house so we'll probably put some of the money towards that," he said.

It was Kachingo!'s first big monthly cash draw for $250,000. Next month's draw is for $1 million and will be held on December 2.

There are three prize levels in Kachingo! - a daily draw for $1,000, a weekly draw for $10,000 and a big cash monthly draw for a minimum $250,000. Shoppers also can get instant rewards of product in-store.

About Kachingo! Kachingo! is a customer rewards programme invented in New Zealand. It is the only one to reward shoppers with Big Cash prizes and instant rewards just for shopping at any store within the Kachingo! village of partners. The village consists of BP, KFC (north of the Bombay Hills), Super Liquor and Woolworths, Big Fresh and Price Chopper supermarkets.

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Issued for Kachingo! by Pead PR

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