You May Already Be a Winner

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

Did you ever do something that you knew was stupid, but you did it anyway?
Yep, that's me. I entered the Publishers Clearing House contest to win $1,000 A WEEK FOR LIFE!!!
Now my mail box is jam-packed with e-mails promising me excitement and major prizes. Look at these subject lines:

"HIGHEST LEVEL OF URGENCY!"
"FLAGGED COMMUNICATION re: your final step…"
"Elaine, we recommend IMMEDIATE action."

You don't just enter a PCH contest. It requires more attention than a nest of hungry baby birds.
I get e-mails like these:
"WINNERS FILE ALERT: Approved by D. Holland for 8/31 Prize Event!"
"About our upcoming delivery . . . " told me what route the Prize Patrol would take to my house and what florist they would stop at to buy my winning bouquet on August 31.
Publishers Clearing House makes it very clear: "No purchase or fee necessary to enter. A purchase won't improve an individual's chance of winning."
But in order to enter and re-enter and enter again, I have to wade through thickets of what I call Grandma Gadgets. That's because I can imagine my Grandma -– and women like her -– buying them. Sweet women who enjoy cooking for their families, keeping their homes spotless and their gardens perfect. 
Thanks to PCH, I'm offered deep discounts on Butter Applicators.

And Deviled Egg Makers.

I can get TWO indoor-outdoor thermometers.

I can clean hard-to-reach places with odd dusting gadgets.

And after all that work, I can buy support wraps for my aching wrists, arms and knees.

 

After a few days, I became addicted to these emails. PCH promised, "Our Customers Mean Everything to Us!" But still I resisted the siren song of the Hutzler Pot Lid Holder & Utensil Rest.

I refused to Unleash the Cleaning Power of Enzymes! With EZR Drain Cleaner. Even the Heavy-Duty Hedge Shears Plus Free Pruner didn't tempt me.
I breezed on by and entered the contest, never buying.
Sometimes I got a pat on the back: "Nice job this week, Elaine."
Why? Beats me.
This weekend, I felt overwhelmed and quit opening the PCH e-mails. I immediately got this disappointed email. "Elaine, your inactivity could really cost you!"
On Monday, with book deadlines looming and work piling up, I went back to looking through the PCH emails. I was welcomed back:
"Elaine, Approval Happened Quickly!"
"You’re SO Close to VIP Status, Elaine!"
"Elaine, we’re waiting to grant you VIP Access!"
"You Did It, Elaine -- Welcome to VIP Status!"
Yes, folks, now I can win $1,000 a day for LIFE! Why, that's enough to buy the Clorox Scrubtastic Power Scrubber with all three brush heads.
And a maid to use it.

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Win the new e-book version of Murder with Reservations, my sixth Dead-End Job mystery, set at a hotel. Helen Hawthorne's co-worker winds up dead in a Dumpster, and Helen's awful ex shows up at the hotel. If Helen doesn't find who killed her colleague and shake off her ex-husband, it could be checkout time for her. Go to www.elaineviets.com and click Contests.

Comments

[Marcia Talley]

And you didn't even need a photo ID!

[Elaine Viets]

I only use my photo ID to buy groceries.

[Margie Bunting]

Elaine, I've been entering sweepstakes as a hobby for more than 20 years (and I've won a couple of trips, among other things), but I steer clear of PCH because I had the same experience you report--they are unrelenting! No one has enough time in the day to meet all of their solicitations and requirements, and the odds of winning are astronomical. But they do know how to suck you in!

[Elaine Viets]

You're smarter than I am, Margie. And absolutely right.

[krisneri]

Despite the astronomical odds against winning, I've been sucked into entering, too. And their emails overwhelmed me as well. I finally just marked their emails as spam and went cold turkey on not entering anymore. I've never bought anything from them, either. Maybe if they'd paid me, I would have. Nah!

[Elaine Viets]

I feel better that you fell for this, Kris.

[Storyteller Mary]

I went through that phase before email, thank goodness. Once one of our custodians came in with a grocery sack of correspondence from PCH and asked me to help her with the paperwork so she could claim her prize. I had to tell her there was no prize there. :-(

[Elaine Viets]

I remember getting the snail mail version, Mary. Those letters fooled lots of older people.

[Judy]

Sounds like it’s time for a new dead end job mystery— Helen is on the prize patrol. It’s the most dead end job ever, as the patrol never leaves the office to find any winners.

[fr]

Helen will be kept busy writing frantic email: WE NEED YOU PARTICIPATION NOW! HURRY! ONLY DAYS LEFT (to be a dupe)