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Scams: Readers Digest Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes

Sample Sweepstakes Scam Email:
Readers Digest Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes

A visitor writes in to report an email purporting to be from the "Readers Digest Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes". There is a Reader's Digest and there is a Publisher's Clearinghouse, and both operate sweepstakes but there is no Readers Digest Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. This is a scam, unrelated to the legitimate organizations of those names.

Note the usual clues to an obvious fraud that we have highlighted in the letter; keep confidential, selected by a random computer lottery of email addresses, no website of their own, use of free hotmail/yahoo email accounts, numerous misspellings, poor grammar and punctuation, etc.

Also see these pages:

For scam company names that start with other letters, click on the letter:

A B C D E F G H I J-K L M N O P Q-R S T U-V W-X-Y-Z

Email from a potential victim:

I received a notice in the mail saying that I have won a drawing from Readers Digest Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. They sent a check that looks pretty real, but I don't want to be defrauded. The name of the company is

IMPERIAL CENTER LOTTO COMMISSION INC
1752 KONGENS GADE ST.
THOMAS, VIRGIN ISLANDS 00802-6746.

It also gives a phone number 1-902-412-9242 for a "Jack Dempsey" in the North America Claim Dept.

Common signs that it is a scam:

the return email addresses are free Yahoo email accounts,
The recipient "won" without buying a ticket (so where does the money come from?)
"For security reasons" you're not allowed to talk to anyone about it (especially the police or consumerfraudreporting.org!) - which ought to be odd since lotteries thrive on publicity!