Publishers Clearing House. Anyone know the truth?...
Publishers Clearing House gave away one million dollars to someone in Oklahoma earlier today.
Someone very close to me is caught up in sweepstakes mania. This bedridden, disabled, 81 year old elderly person called me yesterday to ask that I travel 150 miles to be with them today when the Prize Patrol was expected to show up with balloons and flowers while awarding the million dollar 'Superprize'... My friend had received a letter with a map to their house and an itinerary documenting the local airport time of arrival, local news media, van rental, flower shop along the way, and google map instructions to this person's actual address.
I love this person more than life itself and have tried in the past to advise without guilt or shame. It has taken years of attempts on my part to successfully discourage all of the scam mailings that show up in this person's mailbox. Regardless, each new mailing is as though we'd never discussed it before. "Just send $5, $10, $12, $20, $34...or whatever the processing fee du jour to offset processing fees...
I'm redoubling my efforts regarding any sweepstakes offer outside of Publishers Clearinghouse. I've showed the scam and ripoff reports....again and again.
My question is this: Is Publishers Clearing House legit? PCH had a million dollar prize winner earlier today. I'm trying to negotiate with my friend that Publishers Clearing House is the ONLY sweepstakes that they should respond to and throw the rest away.
Anyone with experience in this area?...
TYY
= new reply since forum marked as read
TYY 
You may want to do that. Stuff about the current promo...a wiki page about em.
May answer some of your questions.
Good on you keeping an eye out. 
I've been googling the names and return addresses of every single 'you're a winner' piece of snail mail that my friend has received and laboriously responded to with a 'check for processing fees' or 'minimum purchase', in the hope of winning some nebulous pecuniary prize. The depth of my friend's involvement in these sweepstakes scams has been increasing exponentially over the past few years, in spite of my advice to the contrary.
I won't go into detail about the extent my friend went to in preparation for today's arrival of the 'Prize Patrol', but suffice it to say that it involved me driving 150 miles to be there for the surprise knock at the door.
The intent behind my OP was to discern whether or not anyone at DU knows the legitimacy of Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes offers. I want to be able to support my friend by endorsing the legitimacy of PCH as an 'if you must' option over the other blatantly fraudulent sweepstakes schemes, without hurting my friend's feelings.
I probably shouldn't have asked such a painfully personal question in a public forum. The 'friend' I was referring to is my mother; my very best friend. Maybe DU's demographic is too young to understand and respond to the anguish of watching ones parents become statistical victims while slowly slipping away and dying by inches.
Thank you shenmue, demwing and Wilms for your empathy.
TYY 
...for your reply. It's painful to witness. Heartbreaking. I suspect we're not alone. 
TYY
from where I live. I think it was during halftime for the Superbowl. Anyway, I believe the family won $10 million or something. So I guess the prize is actually real, although that was at least ten years ago and I have no idea what they're (PCH) doing now. 