With all the hype surrounding The Oprah Winfrey’s Million-Dollar Publisher’s Clearing House Winners episode, it seems prudent to remind everyone to be careful of some scams sweeping the nation.

Publisher’s Clearing House addressed a scam on their blog in April of 2009: Publishers Clearing House Combats Counterfeit Check Scams

Back in March of 2009, the Better Business Bureau posted an article to their blog:

Phony Publishers Clearing House Letter Lands in Mailboxes Across the Country, Warns Better Business Bureau

This article even provides a pdf link of the phony letter.

ConsumerAffairs.com has several pages of complaints in October 2009 from people who received a postcard directing people to visit a fraudulent site, pch.com/bonus.

Publisher’s Clearing House’s official website is www.pch.com. I visited their home page and actually thought I’d reached a spam page because a pop-up warning came up (see below) and it required that I click on “ok” to leave. I’m always leery of messages like that and it would probably be in PCH’s interest to use a more personalized message rather than this generic one that can lead to suspision. It’s safe though and nothing bad happened when I clicked to get off the page.

There are also other reports of residents receiving phone calls from very convincing individuals claiming they are from Publisher’s Clearing House:

• ABC Action News: Fake Publisher’s Clearing House warning
• The Stewart Houston Times: Dover Police warns residents about recent phone scams
• Salt Lake Tribune: What would Ed say? Publisher’s Clearing House scam targets Millard County
• Huliq News: Publishers Clearing House Scam Alert

Feel free to call PCH Customer Service at 1-800-645-9242 to find out what’s real or not.

It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

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