Man Who Won $5000 A Week For Life Now In Danger Of Losing Everything After Publishers Clearing House Went Bankrupt
Would smarter money management have saved him, or was he doomed no matter what?
SrideeStudio | Shutterstock As my grandpa used to say, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That's what one man is learning the hard way after winning a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes that he believed would set him up financially for life.
Everyone over a certain age remembers those commercials — “You could win $5,000 every week for the rest of your life!” People were handed giant checks as they fought back tears with celebratory balloons surrounding them. My young mind couldn’t even wrap around the amazing things happening on TV. While the infamous Publishers Clearing House (PCH) certainly did change some lives, unfortunately, some people are now left to reckon with the fact that the company filed for bankruptcy and no longer has the means to pay them their winnings.
A Publishers Clearing House '$5,000 a week for life' winner is struggling financially after PCH went bankrupt.
Reporting for KGW8, Kyle Iboshi shared the story of John Wyllie. He won the PCH sweepstakes in August 2012 when he was living in White City, Oregon. Naturally, Wyllie thought he was set. He quit his job and bought multiple nice amenities, including a house on a six-acre property in Washington, closer to his children.
Mikhail Nilov | Pexels
Every year, PCH deposited $260,000 in his bank account. Those payments stopped in 2025, just months before PCH filed for bankruptcy in April. Now, Wyllie is seriously concerned. Since he quit his job years ago, he has struggled to find a new one. He has already started selling some things he purchased with the money and suspects his house will be the next thing to go.
KGW8’s investigation revealed at least 10 PCH sweepstakes winners are waiting on money.
ARB Interactive bought PCH in July and plans to continue running sweepstakes. Although a look at the PCH website makes it seem like they’ll be on a much smaller scale. The company said it will only pay for the prizes it gives away beginning after it purchased PCH, leaving those $5,000 a week winners in some strange limbo.
Some PCH winners are doing okay, though. Every sweepstakes winner was given the chance to either get paid one lump sum or have money deposited every year, like Wyllie chose. 71-year-old Ricky Williams, another sweepstakes winner from August 2019, chose to take the lump sum because of his age. He was given over $3 million.
Some are blaming Wyllie for his own poor money management.
Multiple outlets have reported on Wyllie’s predicament as part of the downfall of PCH, including Moneywise, which was republished on Yahoo. Over 1,000 commenters shared their opinion on Wyllie’s money management skills there. “Not everyone is smart with their money,” one person said. “Can’t just spend it all as it comes in as you never know what’s going to happen in life.” Another asked, “You mean all that time he didn’t pay off his home, or invest his money into a business, or put money aside in savings accounts, or something?”
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J.P. Morgan Wealth Management staff writer Seth Carlson said the best thing to do when coming into a large windfall of money is not to let your emotions get the best of you and think about your financial goals. A good first step can be paying off any debt you have. Then you can invest, grow your emergency fund, or save. It can be tempting to spend the money on all the nice things you’ve always wanted, but this is not the smartest strategy.
While it’s certainly not Wyllie’s fault that PCH went bankrupt and he’ll no longer be receiving the payments he was supposed to get for life, some smarter money management could have helped him hold onto more of the money over a longer period of time so he wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now. Then again, there was really no reason for him to think that was necessary.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
