My mind went wild. I didn’t have visions of sugar plums but I did see a beach home, a mountain retreat that would offer a brief respite from the perfect days of sunshine and sand, and maybe a new silver Corvette. The charities that have been close to my heart would benefit from my windfall. So much good to be done!
“How can this be??” you may ask. Well…let me tell you.
Just the other day, at 1:32 pm my landline rang. (Don’t judge me.) On the other end, a robo-female voice told me that I’d been identified as the third-place winner in the mega-million jackpot from Publisher’s Clearing House. I would receive $10 million, $5000.00 a week for life, and a new Mercedes.
Can you imagine my surprise and elation?! I had just been handed a topic for a Scam Alert Lady article!
There were a few clues. The voice was an automated voice. The wording was very stilted and there were interruptions in the flow of “her” speech. There was part of sentence with an insertion of another sentence fragment.
It made me wonder. How DOES Publisher’s Clearing House notify winners? So, I went to my browser.
Publishers Clearing House has been giving money and prizes since 1967. You may remember the late Ed McMahon giving away huge checks (in size and amount) with flowers and balloons. Publishers Clearing House still gives away money. They also offer information on their website on fraud protection.
We all dream of hitting the BIG one whether it’s winning a sweepstakes, hitting the lottery, or cashing in on the pokies. Sweepstakes scams are among the most commonly reported scams, according to the Federal Trade Commission, probably because of the get-rich-quick dream!
The reality is that the odds of winning $5000.00 / week for life are 1 in 6.2 billion according to Statistics How To, or the equivalent of filling the Dodger’s stadium (capacity 56,000) one hundred and ten thousand times and then picking one winner. Not too promising.
Remember –
*You may receive a fake check in the mail. You are then asked to pay fees or taxes, then your financial institution tells you the check wasn’t real.
*You may be told that you are “required” to pay fees and taxes before you can claim your prize. No. You will not be required to pay fees to claim your prize from legitimate sweepstakes.
*Scammers can spoof phone numbers so the number that is showing may be a fake number.
*Do NOT provide personal information if you are asked to send financial data to a claims agent. (Better yet – don’t answer the phone!)
*If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.
Aura has an informative article “How To Identify (and Avoid) Publishers Clearing House Scams” and BitDefender reminds consumers that you won’t win a sweepstakes that you did not enter!
Stay safe.
