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VERIFY: Do people really win the Publishers Clearing House? Or is it a scam?

We've all seen the videos with big checks and big winners, but do REAL people actually win? Or is it all an act?

Who wouldn't want some extra money, especially around the holidays?

The Publishers Clearing House has been surprising people with million-dollar checks for decades.

But is it really on the 'up and up’ or is it all a scam?

Long time KARE-11 viewer Pete Nelson asked us to VERIFY.   

THE QUESTION:

Do people actually win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes? Or is it all a scam?


THE ANSWER:

No, it’s not a scam, but according to the company’s website, your odds of winning the Publishers Clearing House grand prize is one in 6.2 billion.


WHAT WE FOUND:

The Publishers Clearing House was founded in 1953 as a magazine subscription service.

Then in 1967, the company came up with a unique marketing idea.

The idea was to take some of their profits and give it away to their customers in a big showy display with big checks and balloons, and it worked.

Fast forward to today and it's not just magazines anymore.

The Publishers Clearing House sells everything from toasters to tools.

But their big moneymaker is advertising.

Aside from the mailer so many are familiar with, the company says more than 5-million people visit their website every single day to play games in their virtual casino.

The company runs ads while people spend hours playing slot machines, scratch-off tickets, and bingo.

It's all free, and you don't win money. You win entries into their drawings.

The company says these drawings range from $1,000 all the way up their grand prize of $5,000 a week forever.

How can they afford this?

Well, when you look at the fine print, ‘forever’ means the winner's lifetime and the lifetime of another person of their choice, usually their spouse or their kid.

So, let’s assume a grand prize winner and their child, together they live for 100 years.

The payout would be $26 million.

That's a lot of money, but according to the company, they bring in nearly a billion dollars a year.

So, a $26 million grand prize is just a drop in the bucket.

According to the company's website, they've given away $465 million over the entire history of the company.

That's still only half of what the company makes in just one year.

But do REAL PEOPLE actually win these prizes?

Well, just ask Marybeth from Minneapolis.

"It's honest to goodness real,” Marybeth says.

She won $100,000 when the Publishers Clearing House showed up at her front door back in January.

And she can Verify the check is real, it's sitting in her bank account right now.

"it's just like you see on TV and I just screamed. I was like, no way."

She says the only bad thing about winning is the scammers.

Within two hours of getting the money she started getting fake phone calls from scammers who were trying to get a piece of that money.

It's why she asked us to hide her identity and not share her last name.

"Caller ID has been my friend. If we don't recognize the number we just don't answer it."

Marybeth is right to be worried.

While the Publishers Clearing House is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, with an A+ rating, the BBB says scammers take advantage of that trust and they use it to take people's money.

We ran a story two years ago when a local woman was scammed out of $100,000.

Besides the scammers, there are a few other things you need to keep in mind when it comes to the Publishers Clearing House.

According to the company, your odds of winning the grand prize are one in 6.2 billion.

Compare that to your odds of winning the Powerball, one in 292 million, and the Publishers Clearing House is nearly 21 times harder to win.

And while you can enter every day and increase your odds for free, Marybeth you have to scroll through literally hundreds of digital ads every time you enter to win.

So wrapping everything up, we can Verify, the Publishers Clearing House is real, people do win, but the company is often imitated by scammers.

And your odds of winning aren't very good.

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