The man could not believe his eyes. With a lottery ticket of 5 euros, he won 300,000 euro in the Joker game. When the 38-year-old went to cash the money, the problems started. First of all, local lottery branches do not pay wins over 100 euro. The man had to had the money transferred to a bank account – which he did not have.
But it is impossible to open a new bank account under capital controls. And furthermore, he needed to submit several documents like an electricity bill to verify his address, income tax declaration.
“With the help of a friendly person he consulted a lawyer and approached a bank in order to find a solution. He was informed that it was impossible to open an account in his name, both because of restrictions due to capital controls and secondly because it could not provide supporting documents (such as utilities bill and tax declaration),” note Greek daily Espresso.
In front of this deadlock, the man who used to beg for money in Glyfada suburb of south Athens “decided to trust one of his relatives”, registered him as winner and have the money transferred to his bank account.
Ten percent of the win was deducted for taxes.
Well that’s a drop of Good news in an ocean of misery!
However why wasn’t he living with that kind relative? Now I worry….