My first thought was this email was some scammer email because there are ton with PCH. I've seen pretty much everything under the sun as far as online scam emails working as tech admin.
So you be the judge.... There were no links in the email (maybe some dude in Nigeria is kick himself right now.. lol) There is only an email to contact them if I have any questions or comments. The email address is from on PCHMAIL.COM which is owned by them if you do a whois search.
The one big red flag is it wasn't addressed to me personally by name, so I question the validity. But if it's fake then I don't get what their aim is. Typically scam emails will try to get you to go to some site that looks really or domain that is masked. But this email doesn't have any of that.
Update from Today -Sunday September 18th
When I logged on to pch.com to play some games like normal, I immediately got this pop-up window (below), so it appears this is really a total screw up that happened to players on a wide scary. But in the apology email they sent out, they made it sound like it only happened to me... to try to limit the outrage and cover their butts.
Here is what the header info says in gmail and the email itself...
Sent from: Publishers Clearing House [email protected]
To: PCHCustomer <[email protected]>
Subject: We apologize for our mistake
SPF: SOFTFAIL with IP 192.185.54.2 Learn more
DKIM: PASS with domain e.pchcustomerservice.pch.com Learn more
DMARC: PASS
September 17, 2016
Dear VIP,
VIP's like you are so important to us and we wanted to reach out at once to apologize and correct some inaccurate information that was recently provided to you.
We learned early this morning that due to an error your name was mistakenly included in a winner announcement sent to you for a $10,000 sweepstakes prize. The announcement including your name was sent only to you, and not to anyone else.
The name appearing in the announcement was supposed to have been our recent winner, Mark deGuzman of San Jose, CA. Unfortunately, in our effort to announce this news, your name was inadvertently inserted in the announcement.
We deeply regret any confusion this may have caused and want to assure you that we have taken steps to prevent such an error from occurring again. By way of a thank you for your loyalty, we are automatically entering you into a special contest in which we will draw 5 winners of $10,000.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us immediately at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Emily Johnson
Manager, Customer Service
FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE
Visit us at pch. com for great deals and exciting opportunities to enter our Sweeps!
So what do you think? It has me scratching my head, so I thought I'd share it with the Steem members to see what everyone this.
Your not the only one that received this exact email. Mine was word for word exactly the same. After doing all the searches and games for well over 15 yrs i have received nothing but more tokens! I know this is rigged and no one actually wins! Good luck to you if you choose to keep playing.
Sincerely,
Catherine Yurkovich
Ok so not just me but I just started playing originally instead of freecell which give me zero chance to win anything. But I've always assumed I'd never win anything significant but it's free. And I always have these times in my day where I'm just twiddling my thumbs at times waiting. So to keep my mind going I'll play a quick simple game so pch worked for me for that.
Maybe try email them to the email or from the member's area at pch.com to ask them if this is just a cruel joke or not.
I'm thinking about emailing support online just to see.
I don't know, but maybe it's some kind of play to make you think drat I almost won and gamble more with them. It is a big flag they don't use your name.
Everything they only have is free to enter but they do always pitch you on offers constantly when playing. But that's done on their site and no purchase is ever required to enter.
I normally just play them when I'm waiting on someone. I used to play freecell for something do while I'm waiting for some process to run or a project is on waiting for replies. But I thought might as well be playing something and earn a remote chance of winning something.
In the 3 or 4 odd years I've been playing, I've gotten a check for 10 bucks in the mail and 2 Amazon gift cards for 10 bucks each. Nothing special but more than I'd earn playing some card game on my pc. I bought one cheap thing one time early on, but the order process is slow & shipping cost was higher than a lot of other places online.
I got the same email however while playing my usual time consuming games last night, a window popped up that said congratulations to 'me' of 'my city, state', as the vip sweepstakes $10,000 winner. I took a pic of the screen and showed my wife. I was skeptical, but thought that my years of racking up tokens and never winning finally paid off.
When I received the email I was livid. I would rather have not gotten the apology email and just thought that I missed the usual disclaimer somewhere. But I studied the picture I took of my screen last night and was hoping.
After this incident, I am DONE..DONE..DONE..with PCH
ok, that's possible but nice how they lie by saying this "The announcement including your name was sent only to you, and not to anyone else." You and @cyurkovich03 have confirmed getting this exact apology. But I'm not done using them since I went in assuming I'd never see anything although I did get a 10 buck check once and two digital amazon cards for $10 each which did give me credit to my amazon account.
But of course the odds are horrible to win anything significant. Then again so is Power Ball and that costs money with the odd something someone getting hit by lightning while on a plane that then crashes and you are the only survivor. :)