Maine's Morning Sentinel newspaper made a bad mistake. In the February 27, 2007 edition, Sentinel ran a story about lottery winner, Venizon Turner Jr. There's nothing wrong with that as names and photos of lottery winners are published all the time. But what Maine's Morning Sentinel did was they published the address and Social Security Number of Venizon as well. That's a no-no.
The morning Sentinel's photographer went to Venizon Turner Jr's home to do a story for the newspaper. He asked Venizon if he had anything official from the lottery to take his picture with. Usually, lottery offices take a picture with a big promotional cardboard check. But Venizon didn't have this. He did have the claim form, though, and the picture was taken with this. However, the claim form showed his home address and Social Security Number on it. Nobody caught this until the picture and story was published in the newspaper.
Venizon Turner Jr won $300,000 and this is perfect information for con-artists to do some damage on a guy they know just won a lot of money from Maine Lottery. Not good.
Of course, The Morning Sentinel newspaper didn't publish this sensitive information on purpose. They would never do that. Nonetheless, it was a bad mistake.
Let this be a lesson to all you future lottery winners out there (Yes, someone reading this will, one day, win the lottery; I hope it's you). Necer let anybody take a picture of your lottery prize-claim form. Got that?
Monday, June 15, 2009
Maine Lottery Winner Venizon Turner Jr Get Social Security Number Published In Sentinel
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tino Sundin
Posted by: Tino Sundin
Updated at: Monday, June 15, 2009
