It was a message that countless Americans have longed to hear: You’ve just won millions of dollars in the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

Unfortunately for one Bainbridge Island woman, a winner’s notification letter that she’d won $2.5 million — along with a check to start the claims process — she received just before Christmas turned out to be a scam.

According to Bainbridge Island police, an 80-year-old Bainbridge woman narrowly avoided being scammed out of thousands of dollars after she received a letter in mid-December purportedly from Publishers Clearing House, the New York-based company that doles out millions in cash prizes each year and sometimes greets winners with a “Prize Patrol” on their doorstep.

The Bainbridge woman received a letter saying that she had won $2.5 million, along with a non-negotiable check for that amount, plus another check for $6,490.21 to supposedly cover insurance and legal fees.

The letter also included a request to call a claims manager at a toll-free number to talk about her winnings.

When the woman called the number, she was told to deposit the check for $6,490.21 and to get a money order for $5,000 from Western Union and send it back.

The woman, according to a Bainbridge police report on the case, deposited the check for $6,490 into her account at Columbia Bank, but decided to wait before getting the money order and mailing it.

The delay saved her from being scammed. When she went to her bank on Monday, Dec. 29, she learned the check was fraudulent.