Jose Lima received some advice from OLG staff at the Toronto prize centre when he went in to get his $14.5 million that he won in Lotto 6/49 in March of 2008:
Get out of town until things settle down and CHANGE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.
He should have listened to the last part of advice.
Jose Lima was a generous man after the big win. He worked at a meat shop and gave $5000 each to fifty employees. He also gave away 30 thousand kilograms of free chicken to customers. And, he gave $1000 each to friends. The rest was for his grandchildren. He didn't even splurge on anything big for himself, other than to take more vacations than usual.
But that wasn't good enough for some people. Friends and even people that barely knew him wanted cash. They would tell him sob stories and anything else they could think of to get their hands on some of it. There were even "long lost" relatives in Portugal that wanted money. These were relatives that he had never even heard of. Jose says that he lost about five close friends due to the lottery win.
But even with all of the headaches, Jose Lima was glad that he won because he is now able to take care of his grandchildren. And, that is what matters most!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Jose Lima Warned To Change Phone Number After Winning Millions In Lottery
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Tino Sundin
Posted by: Tino Sundin
Updated at: Thursday, April 09, 2009
