Watch out for PCH

[Jax2]

Hi all, Jax2 here.

I just wanted to pass on some information from my own personal experience as well as from many other people I have talked to.

The subject of this post is Publishers Clearing House, or, PCH.

First, let me say in advance that PCH IS a real contest. By this I mean, someone DOES win the prize, so it's not completely a scam, but beyond that, watch out!

PCH is a company that promotes products like magazines, seen on tv items, books and more. To promote their products, they offer a once a year contest for a large amount of money, usually more than 1 million dollars, or a 10 million dollar prize. During the year they also hold some mini-contests for much smaller amounts.

PCH has been known to use less than honorable methods to get people to sign up for their contest. Usually, their target is older people who do not fully understand how the contest works.

These people believe that by ordering the products from PCH, their chances of winning the money is almost guaranteed. This is because PCH uses such words as YOU ARE A GUARANTEED WINNER and then in very fine print (if your number is chosen). This is but one small example of how they word the materials they send to people, trying to trick them into thinking that they should purchase magazines and products they don't want/need in order to win the prize.

Another method they use is sheer brute force. By this, I mean that they send you something via EMAIL almost on a daily basis, or by normal post almost weekly.

These notices usually come in the form of a contest entry, after which you are taken to a "sponsor" of theirs where they pitch their product or offer, or they show you 4 or 5 pages of items you "should" buy.

Any notices that buying an item will NOT increase your chance of winning are often in such small fine print that you cannot see them.

Please, do not fall for this scam. Sure, a 1 in 360 million chance at winning 10 million dollars may sound nice, but the hassles you must go through once they have your information and have you on their mailing list just isn't worth it.

If you know any elderly people who have been taken by PCH and have gobs of old magazines and products they've purchased, sit down with them and go over the materials with them and point out precisely where it says that they don't need to buy this stuff and that it won't help them if they do. Too many elderly people have been taken for a ride by PCH, and we need to look out for them!

Feel free to reply and let me know what you think.