Greetings, fans and friends!
Do you have to pay to claim a PCH prize? If you’ve won a Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, is there a fee in order to receive your winnings?
The answer is absolutely NOT. Not only are PCH sweepstakes and giveaways always FREE to enter, you never have to pay a penny to claim a PCH prize – of any amount – EVER!
In fact, if anyone tells you – either by phone; email; or social media like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram; that you’ve won a PCH prize and you must make some sort of payment in order to claim it, THIS IS A SCAM!
Paying to Claim a Prize? That’s a PCH Scam!
Let’s break it down here:
- Publishers Clearing House would never ask you to pay to claim a prize of any amount.
- Publishers Clearing House would never call winners in advance, would never send you a Facebook friend request, and would never engage in any other type of social media conversation with you!
- For major prizes, the PCH Prize Patrol will deliver your prize check to you in person – along with balloons, champagne and roses.
- If you are asked to send cash or a check … or purchase a Green Dot MoneyPak prepaid card or any other cash card – DON’T DO IT! The scammer will ask for the numbers located on the back of the card. Once they have this information they are able to access the money quickly. And once the money is gone, it’s gone forever.
There are NEVER any fees to claiming a prize!
If there’s one thing to remember here, fans and friends, it’s that if you become a PCH prize winner, we pay YOU! You NEVER have to pay us.
At Publishers Clearing House the winning is ALWAYS FREE, and there are NEVER any fees to claiming a prize! If someone tells you that you’ve won a prize, but that in order to claim it you need to give them money for any reason – STOP – it’s a SCAM!
I hope I’ve made this all perfectly clear. At PCH, we love to make entering enjoyable and exciting, we love to award prizes and we love to make dreams come true!
If you believe you’ve been contacted by a scammer, please fill out our Scam Incident Report right away!
Stay safe … and have fun!
Debbie K.
PCH Creative
P.S. If you’ve learned one important lesson from this blog, what is it? Please comment below!
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Beware of PCH Scams on Facebook and Instagram
A man from supposed to be publishers clearing house named David Myers called and give me Bank of America‘s phone number to verify that I won $5.5 million and all I had to do was pay a $2500 fee with five vanilla Visa cards of $500 each the Bank of America number was 1-800-432-1000 account number 586001843829 with a pin number 4031 constantly blowing up my phone I want to know when they can get their cards
Hello George, The real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
We were almost scammed,they wanted us to buy a a card and went on and on and on and we looked it up on the website and y’all show that there’s no money to be given so they’re trying to get money out of people thank you
Hi Oscar, the real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
it broke my heart someone on facebook told me that I won . It was crazy they show me pictures of winners even a picture with a lady holding up a card with my name on it saying I was a winner wow it look so real it was real my name and everything. Its a shame we can’t trust nothing no more.
Hello Christine, that is definitely a scammer who contacted you! PCH will never send friend requests, private messages, or winner notifications via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc; we also never ask for money to claim a prize. Do not give this person any personal information and certainly do not send them any money!! Instead, report them to PCH by completing a Scam Incident Report. Here’s how: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. Check out this FAQ for info on how to stop scammers from contacting you on Facebook: http://bit.ly/StopFBScammers. Please be careful everyone; don’t become a scammer’s victim!
Daniella Lam is trying to get me to pay $145 to win a PCH prize. I won’t pay, am I being correct?
Hi Susan! The real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
Someone had called me and said i hsd won a prize from PCH of 7 million dollars a car and 5000$ a week for life I need to pay a bank transfer of the amount of 25000$ I dont have that kind of money and they want me to usse my life ins What should i do I dont like this at all and think its a scam
Hello Robert, The real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
DANIELLE LAM KEEP ASKING FOR MONEY FEE TO CLAIM A PRIZE I WON
Hello Robert, that was not the real Danielle who contacted you. The real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
Thank you. I’ve been scammed out of $900. By a fake Danielle person. Thank you for all the hard work you guys do to make dreams come true. This information was helpful.
Hello Tyne, please report all contacts from scammers to PCH via this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. PCH does partner with the Federal Trade Commission and we send all scam reports to them so please make sure you let us know anytime a scammer contacts you. Remember, the real PCH never notifies major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask winners to pay to claim their prize. You can see more Safety Tips here: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Please be careful everyone; don’t become a scammer’s victim.
I am so tired of receiving words that I won pch and everything it cost me money this is the last time I will believe I have won anything from pch. I have been trying to Winn since 1982 and all I have received are scams were do they get my name do you sale my information. A very frustrated customers.
Hello Barbara, The real PCH doesn’t notify our major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media, and we never ask for money to claim a prize. Please report any details you have about that scam contact to us at this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. I also encourage you to check out these Safety Tips for some great info on what to watch for: https://bit.ly/FraudProtection2. Stay safe everyone!!
That’s NOT true!! PCH winners must make payments for thousands of dollars. Starting with “Gold Seals”. Dave did it, Danielle does it. There are so many payments. That’s not true at all. I have proof it isn’t.
Hello Janice, PCH would never request that you send money in order to claim a prize. Unfortunately, scammers aren’t always easy to locate since many of them operate out of country. You can do your part to help us by reporting all scam contacts that you receive via this link: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. It’s important to remember that the real PCH will never notify major prize winners via phone, standard mail, email, or social media,. I encourage you to take a look at this blog article for some great tips on how you can stop scammers from contacting you: http://bit.ly/PCH-Safety-Tips.
Someone claiming to be Danielle Lam keeps on finding me telling me I need to get a steam card and ‘ACTIVATE’ my winnings.
Hello Shane, that was not the real Danielle who contacted you. PCH does not contact winners via social media, whether it be through private message or friend request. Please report the fake account to us here: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. Check out this blog article for info on how you can stop scammers from contacting you on Facebook: http://bit.ly/StopFBScammers. Stay safe everyone and be careful of scammers pretending to be the REAL Prize Patrol!
Hello Shane, that is definitely a scammer who contacted you! PCH will never send friend requests, private messages, or winner notifications via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc; we also never ask for money to claim a prize. Do not give this person any personal information and certainly do not send them any money!! Instead, report them to PCH by completing a Scam Incident Report. Here’s how: http://bit.ly/Report-Scam-To-PCH. Check out this FAQ for info on how to stop scammers from contacting you on Facebook: http://bit.ly/StopFBScammers. Please be careful everyone; don’t become a scammer’s victim!