BBB: Publisher’s Clearing House Scam Resurfaces

No, Publisher’s Clearing House is not coming to your door with balloons and a giant check.

Once again, the Better Business Bureau is warning people about this old scam that is circulating again.

Those who enter sweepstakes and lotteries always await that special phone call notifying them that they’ve won big!

Unfortunately, scammers know just how to play into our emotions and are tricking people into paying for prizes they haven’t actually won; especially now when the cost of living is so high it’s hitting everybody in the pocketbook.

The Better Business Bureau reports that it recently received several reports to their Scam Tracker site of phone calls that impersonate Publishers Clearing House representatives.

Scammers will call you and claim to be a Publishers Clearing House employee.

They tell you you’ve won millions of dollars and a brand-new car.

They might even send you a photo of your new car and all the money you will receive and that real celebrities will come to your house in the coming days to award your prizes.

But the catch is that before you can receive your prizes, you must first pay a feeas an “IRS requirement” or a “broker’s fee” by sending money via a gift card – anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to thousands.

And if you catch on to the scam and hang up the phone, the scammer may call you back multiple times and leave you several messages asking for the money, making it difficult to end communication with them.

Christopher L. Irving of Publishers Clearing House, a BBB Accredited Business, reminds consumers that Publishers Clearing House will never call or private message a person via social media to let them know they have won and they will never ask for payment.

To find more information about sweepstakes, lottery, and prize scams from BBB, and to learn more about how to spot a scam, and to read more about gift card scams and how to avoid being scammed you can go to BBB.org/scam/sweepstakes.