Oct

11

Publisher's Clearing House directs it's advertising towards the elderly. The advertising format of Publisher's Clearing House (PCH) attracts con men who piggyback on their message and try to extract as much cash as they can from the elderly and unsuspecting by declaring them winners of the big prize.

This hit close to home this week. A few weeks ago, my mother in law called my wife to tell her that Publisher's called to inform her that she won the grand prize of 70 million dollars and a new Mercedes. My wife, ever the skeptic, told her mother that she didn't believe the whole thing, and please don't send any money. Mother in law assured my wife that she didn't send any money.

She mentioned a lawyer/representative of PCH she spoke to who was named Dave Sayer (an actual prize patrol spokesman of PCH). My wife googled this name and got a zillion hits of this Dave Sayer/PCH scam and how to know it's a con. My wife called back and told her mother it was a scam but my MIL didn't believe her. My wife then reported it to the state Attorney General's office, and had one of the officers call my MIL to inform her that this was a total con.

After speaking to my MIL, the officer then called my wife back and said that my MIL had indeed sent cash to this guy via Western Union. She sent $6,000 cash, at least that's what she admitted. The officer thinks it was probably much more as most victims won't ever admit the true damages. My wife confronted her mother to tell her to not send any more money. My MIL said that her money is her business, and to butt out. The problem is that she believes the guy and expects to have a brand new Mercedes delivered this afternoon (Oct 10) and her check for $70 million by the end of the week. Of course it won't show and she can kiss her 6K goodbye. She won't get her 70 million either.

Incidentally, the 6 grand was the tax and delivery charges for the Mercedes. Here's the deal, my MIL is in her early 80s and is quite aware of things. Her mental facilities are not diminished and she's quite bright. Her problem is that she does not believe that people would call on the phone and misrepresent themselves. She thinks she's streetwise enough to recognize a con. The MIL believes in the goodness of human nature and is also a old South Christian woman. She is quite naive and she's also $6K poorer.

My MIL does not think she has been the victim of a con at all, quite the opposite, she is ready to drive her new Mercedes and is ready to sell the Toyota I bought her last year. One thing she does have that all con victims share is an out sized sense of greed, of getting something for nothing. She was never a customer of Publisher's Clearing House. Needless to say, we are very heartbroken and also upset that despite being shown the truth, she is waiting at home for her new car and $70 million. Somehow, I feel that this is going to come out of my pocket.

anonymous writes: 

Anecdotally, I've noticed that the elderly seem very susceptible to being catfished also by Nigerians and others, even if they don't otherwise appear gullible. I guess hope and loneliness are very powerful emotions to be exploited.

Sorry to hear about the MIL and the fact you'll probably being paying for it.

anonymous writes:

Everyone should be aware of this Phishing scam. It almost snagged me and I'm not "elderly" (in actuarial terms at least).

I received a text on my cell phone that says: Alert from CHASE Bank : Your Debit-Card is temporary Locked. Please call us now at 201-754-1565. Thank you for your time

There are two clues that this is bogus. (1) The word temporary is a typo. They meant temporarily. (2) The call back number is in New Jersey. If the text had no typo and an 800 number and perhaps the last 4 digits of my debit card, then I would have called them and been phished. Instead I blocked caller ID and called the number and heard a legitimate sounding Chase autoanswer voice, which detected my caller ID blocking and hung up on me.

I've heard of scams like this during which they record you saying the word "Yes" and then use your recorded voice to purchase goods/services/transfer money. Or it could just have been an attempt at identity theft. Regardless, I forwarded the text to Abuse@Chase.Com and Chase shut down the scammer….for now at least.

It's a jungle out there. Robo callers/texting/emailing makes the marginal cost of solicitation close to zero.


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  1. bob on October 18, 2017 12:18 pm

    Similar scam is to be contacted and the caller (or email/text) says it is the fraud prevention dept of any of your cards and to contact them about suspicious activity to verify if it was you or not.
    the first thing they ask is for you to verify your account with all the details of your card and other identifying information. This once happened to me so I told the caller there was no way I would give him that info but I could call the number on back of card then I was the one initiating to a legit number. He immediately said okay I understand didn’t try to argue.

    Indeed it was a real request from chase. Since I called a known legitimate number I proceeded and they cancelled any bogus charges before posted.
    cf. Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments.

    Ps From Snopes on the ‘can you hear me to entice a yes scam’ it appears apocryphal:

    snippet:
    ‘The “Can you hear me?” scam for now seems to be more a suggestion of a hypothetical crime scheme than a real one that is actually robbing victims of money. In messages we left with the BBC, the FTC, and the Consumer Federation of America, we asked a question absent from all the news reports we’ve encountered about this scam: “Are there any documented cases of people being victimized in this manner?” We have not yet received any affirmative response to those queries.’

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