Scam of the Week: Clearing House Publishers

Yes, you may think the words in the title of this scam are in the wrong order. But no, this is the name of a company that wants you to think it is the same one that offers you $5000 a week for life if you win their sweepstakes. More about that semi-legitimate company later.

You get a telephone call from Clearing House Publishers telling you that you have won $2300 in prizes but first you must send them a "processing fee" of $130. A few weeks after you send the fee but have not received your prize, you call and ask what happened. They agree to send out your prize package and finally it comes in the mail. Instead of a check for $2300 there are three certificates: a $1000 certificate entitling you to order that amount of merchandise and services from a website, another $1000 certificate that can be redeemed for a Grocery Savers Booklet and finally a $300 gas rebate form.

When you go to the website to start ordering your free merchandise you notice that there are no brand names and you must pay a shipping and handling charge for each free purchase. The costs of those charges are more than what you would pay to buy the actual brand name merchandise at a local store. So you decide to forget that prize and move on to the next - your $1000 grocery certificate.

But to redeem your free grocery prize you must pay $15 to receive the actual Grocery Savers Booklet. Pay must be made by credit card and sent to a Vacation Getaway company in California. That sounds funny and a little risky. Oh well, forget that but at least you can get $300 of free gas.
So you read the $300 gas rebate certificate and discover you must pay a "one-time" $35 redemption fee. To receive the $300 in rebates, you must spend $100/month at the one gas station you select and you can only redeem $25 in rebates per month. To add insult to injury, this certificate must be redeemed by the expiration date printed on the bottom of the form-

The local family that paid the processing fee and eventually received their $2300 prize certificates luckily consulted with Seniors vs Crime before throwing away more of their hard-earned money. However, they received no free merchandise, groceries or gas and lost $130. And that brings us back to the other real company that offers a $5000 a week for life grand prize.

The problem with the grand sweepstakes company is that it entices seniors in particular, into thinking the more merchandise they buy the better their chances of winning. The company likes to say "...you don't have to buy anything to win, but we can continue to give away great prizes only as long as good folks like you take advantage of our great deals." The odds of winning their grand prize are 1 in 1,750,000,000.

One of my least favorite memories was going home to see my parents when they were in their 90's. What should have been a happy visit got off to a surprising start when I opened their front door and was greeted by a living room full of mostly unopened merchandise in boxes. When I questioned this obvious spending spree my father told me those purchases were helping him to win the grand prize. After all, he had just received in the mail the Official Notice of Imminent Winner Selection.

Again please remember, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is!