Putaruru's $100,000 Winner Found

The winner of last Sunday's $100,000 Kachingo! draw works in the Putaruru supermarket where she was issued with her prize-winning ticket.

The woman is a mother of a young family and is employed at Woolworths Putaruru. It is the first time a staff member of a Kachingo! retail partner has won a major prize draw.

Kachingo! spokesperson Mary Vance says there are no restrictions on who can participate in Kachingo!.

"Kachingo! is a rewards scheme and is open to anyone who shops and spends a qualifying amount or buys a product on promotion," she says. "Our lucky Putaruru winner is a loyal Woolworths shopper and so qualifies to win prizes.

"We are doubly thrilled a member of our family has won such a life-changing amount."

The Putaruru winner says she found the experience of winning $100,000 quite "weird".

"I actually knew I had won the big draw," she says, "and there I was at work and people were rushing in to check their numbers on the self-checker and I knew it was me who had won."

The excitement for Woolworths team members began on Monday when first the store workers and then the entire town found out someone had won the weekly big cash draw.

"When I got home from work on Monday I told my husband we had better check our tickets as someone in Putaruru had won Kachingo! but he was pretty doubtful; no-one expects to win.

"Early next morning I dredged the tickets out of my handbag and grabbed them from behind the magnet on the fridge and checked that I had actually shopped on the day the winning ticket was issued.

"My daughter was home from school so I asked her to check the numbers on the Kachingo! Internet site. I was so nervous I deliberately put the ticket for the 30th (of April) at the bottom of the pile."

Sure enough the Internet site indicated that last ticket was a winner. But when the woman phoned Kachingo! in Auckland early in the morning the person who verifies the tickets had yet to arrive at work.

"I spent a very jumpy 20 minutes or so waiting for them to ring back, I can tell you," she said.

The couple is undecided about what it is going to do with the windfall although some of it will be spent on a family holiday overseas.

Woolworths' spokesperson Des Flynn says Woolworths has more than 10,000 team members working for the company.

"We know many of our team members shop with us and it's fantastic to hear that a team member has won a big cash draw with Kachingo!"

The winner has lived in Putaruru for more than a decade and has worked at Woolworths for two years.

Woolworths Putaruru has now issued Kachingo!-winning tickets worth $102,000.

About Kachingo!

Kachingo! is a customer rewards programme invented in New Zealand. It is the only one to give shoppers cash rewards just for shopping at any store within the Kachingo! village of partners. The village consists of BP, Super Liquor and Woolworths, Big Fresh and Price Chopper supermarkets. Since October 2001, Kachingo! partners have issued more than 90,000 winning gameline tickets worth more than $5 million.

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Issued for Kachingo! by Pead PR

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