I recently read an article about the publishers clearing house preying on the elderly (Does Publishers Clearinghouse Prey on the Eldery? by Tori), and I have to agree this is completely the truth. It’s also not just the publishers clearing house there are several sweepstakes companies that send letters daily stating you are one step closer to being the million-dollar winner. Just send in your twenty-dollar release fee and you will be rich.
I know a woman that waits by her mailbox daily to open her sweepstakes letters. She gets a pile everyday of probably ten to fifteen letters from theses so called sweepstakes companies. She had me help her one-day fill them out and as I was reading them I couldn’t believe that someone would fall for these obvious scams. But sure enough she was determined that she had already one and they were going to be delivering a big check and a car to her doorstep. I tried to explain to her it was a rip-off and that every letter that got sent out said the same thing. They just changed the name on the letter, but she wouldn’t hear it. So she took all her money she should of used to pay her monthly bills and she got several money orders for twenty and thirty dollars and mailed them out .I asked her how long she had been entering these sweepstakes and she said for many years. I then proceeded to ask if she had to send in money each time she entered and she replied yes, that was to help with the expenses of running the contest and delivering the prizes. So then I asked her if she had ever actually gotten any of these pries it said she had won, and of course she said she had not. I asked why she kept entering then and she said the letter says she is the next one on the winners list to get her money. I then again tried to explain that they tell everyone this but she would not believe that something on paper wasn’t true.
This is a terrible thing for these scam companies to do to our elderly but they know they can get more of a reaction from them. They know some of the elderly don’t have families around to see these letters, and that most of the elderly haven’t been exposed to scams before so they would have no reason to be untrusting. They make the envelopes and letters look so official with their gold stickers that it’s easy for people to fall for them. An elderly person who sees in writing they have won millions of dollars if they will just send in a processing fee could easily be tricked into sending a months worth of bill and food money to these scam companies. We can help by stopping these companies. If you have an elderly person in your family or are friends with make them aware of these types of scams. Show them the fine print at the bottoms of the letters. Make sure they understand that if they really won something they wouldn’t be asked to pay any money for it, and they don’t have to buy anything to increase their chances of winning the big prize. Remind them that its illegal for sweep-stake companies to charge or make you buy merchandise to win a contest.
If you find that a loved one or yourself have fell victim to a scam like these contact the Attorney General at (202) 326-6000, or the National Fraud Information Center at 1-800-876-7060.You can also contact the Better Business Bureau to determine if a company is legit or not. They can be contacted at 1-800-552-4631.
Remember these important facts when dealing with sweep-stake mailings:
1.If the postage says bulk mail permit it has been mailed to many others claiming they are a winner as well.
2. You do not have to pay for anything to win a sweep-stakes.
3.If you didn’t enter the sweep-stakes then how could you have already won?
4.If it sounds to good to be true, like you have already won millions of dollars, then it is not true.
5. The best advice I can give is to throw any sweep-stakes letters that you have not entered in the garbage as soon as you get them. Don’t allow the scam companies to keep taking our hard earned money.
