On Tuesday, July 23, 2019, I received a call from someone pretending to be a representative of Publishers Clearing House (PCH) who identified himself as Tony WIsh and told me I had won 5 1/2 million dollars, a Mercedes Benz, and free petrol for a year for the vehicle - obviously he was not someone who grew up in the U.S. to use "petrol" rather than "gas." He asked me what color car I wanted and whether I wanted the money all at once or in monthly payments and then requested personal information from me to ostensibly fill out a tax form. I asked him for a call back number as an assurance that he wasn't a scammer and he gave me the number 805-399-4139. I asked him where he was located and he told me was at the PCH headquarters in Washington, D.C., though when I immediately looked up the number, I saw it was a California number. When I pointed that out to him, he said that all PCH representatives get 8 numbers, claiming it was so the people they contacted would not have long distance charges, though the number he gave was not a local one for me. When I asked several times what street the headquarters was on in Washington, D.C., he repeated "you are breaking up." I hung up at that point.
For anyone who might receive such a call and think it could be legitimate, Publishers Clearing House states on their Fraud Protection page that "Our major winners are notified by mail or in person (at our option) and we never phone ahead to disclose that someone has won a major prize."
I filed a complaint at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Consumer Complaints website as I usually do when I get calls from such scammers intent on defrauding those they call. I also filed a complaint at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Complaint Assistant site at where you can select the "Rip-offs and Impostor Scams" option.
