• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, September 8, 2025

Publishers Clearing House has been sued innumerable times, mostly for implying in direct mail and email that people were winners ("You may have already won!"), or that they had a better chance of winning if they bought something. 

But through all the controversy, nobody ever accused PCH of not actually giving out the prizes. There always was a winner, often one who whooped or collapsed in tears when the Prize Patrol showed up at their door. 

Well, that has changed. PCH, which went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, is not making its weekly payments to persons promised lifetime income, KGW8 reports.

Take John Wyllie of White City, who says he won $260,000 a year per life in 2012, payable in weekly increments of $5,000. 

The payments stopped without warning in April. And White, who is now 61, has to go back to work, if he can find a job, and may lose his home, according to KGW8, which claims it has found 10 such “winners.”

The bankrupt company was bought out of bankruptcy in July by ARB Interactive, which said it is “committed to restoring and preserving the trust that has defined the Publishers Clearing House (PCH) brand for decades” according to People. 

But there’s a hitch. ARB will assume responsibility for payment of prizes won after July 15. But it is not doing so for prizes awarded prior to that. 

Those payments would be handled by the bankruptcy estate, to which ARB has contributed, assuming they are made at all.

In 2024, PCH said it has awarded PCH Sweepstakes prizes totaling over $593 million.

Victims are devastated—as well they should be. This wasn’t a deliberate scam, but PCH and ARB have a huge job to do if they want to restore trust. 

The line should be changed to, "You may have already lost."

PCH was a brilliant marketer, even if it seemed to go overboard at times. It had also evolved into a data business that supplied the publishing ecosystem with first-party data. 

Still, the company had liabilities over $50 million, and 100,000 creditors when it filed for bankruptcy protection. And the publicity from this debacle is bound to reduce the input to PCH lists and data.

There’s one lesson here for future winners. Experts state you should elect to take the full sum at once, and not have it paid out.