BreakTheChain.org
|
|
Mister, can you spare a buck?Date Added: Jan. 15, 2001
Though the names and dollar amounts change frequently, pyramid schemes - deals where a few people make a lot of money while many people make very little money (or even lose it) - are some of the oldest and most venerable chain letters. They're still going strong and finding new energy (and victims) from the "instant gratification" mentality of the Internet. Dear Friend, This letter is about an opportunity to make an incredible amount of Money ( CASH !!!) in a very short time. The cost is only $6.00! This is the 16th day since I started receiving $ cash, and so far I have received $5,845 (in $1 Bills)...so I guess this is really working! Give it a try! All I did was follow the instructions in the letter that I received below, and sent out some e-mail to people who responded to my ads. Here is a testimony from one of the thousands who have benefited from this simple investment plan. "I'm a retired attorney, and about a year ago a man came to me with a letter. The letter he brought to me is the same letter before you now. He asked me to verify that this letter was legal. I told him that I would review it and get back to him. When I first read the letter, I thought it was some off the wall idea to make money. A week later I met again with my client to discuss the issue. I told him that the letter would be all right. I was curious about the letter, so he told me how it worked. I thought it was a long shot, so I decided against participating. Before my client left, I asked him to keep me updated as to his results. About two months later he called me to tell me that he had received more than $800,000.00 in cash! I didn't believe him. So he asked me to try the plan and see for myself." "I thought about it for a few days and decided that there was not much to lose. I followed the instructions exactly and mailed out 200 letters. Sure enough the money started coming in! It came slowly at first, but after three weeks I was getting more than I could open in a day. After three months the money stopped coming. I kept a precise record of my earnings and at the end it totalled $868,439.00. I earn a good living as an attorney, but as anyone in the legal profession will tell you, there is a lot of stress that comes with the territory. I decided if things worked out, I would retire from practice and play golf. This time I sent out 500 letters. Well, three months later, I had totalled $2,344,178.00." "I met my old client for lunch to find out exactly how it works. He told me that there were a few similar letters going around. What made this one different is the fact that there were six names on the letter, not three like most others. That act alone resulted in more returns. The other factor was the advice I gave him in making sure the whole thing was perfectly legal, since no one wants to risk doing anything illegal. I bet now you are curious about what little changes I told him to make. Well, if you send a letter like this one, to be legal, you must sell something if you expect to receive a dollar. I told him that anyone sending a dollar must received something in RETURN. So when you send a dollar to each of the six names on the list, you must include a slip of paper saying, "Please add me to your mailing list" and include your name and mailing address. This is the key to the program. The item you will receive for your dollar sent, is THIS letter and the right to earn thousands." Follow the simple instructions EXACTLY, and in less than three months you should receive MORE THAN $800,000.00 IN COLD HARD CASH! 1) IMMEDIATELY send $1.00 (US$) to each of the six people listed below. THE SOONER YOU SEND THE "$1.00 LETTERS" THE SOONER YOU CAN START GETTING A RETURN! Wrap the dollar in a note saying "PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR MAILING LIST". ***NAMES DELETED*** 2) REMOVE the NAME and ADDRESS NEXT to #1 at the top of the list and move the rest of the names UP one position. Then place YOUR name in the # 6 spot. This is best done by saving this to a file and entering your information on line # 6. Be careful when you type the addresses. Don't forget to PROOF-READ them. Make SURE that the names and addresses are correct. 3) When you have COMPLETED the above instructions, you have several options on how you market the letter - through the Postal Service, through E-mail, through posting in "FREE CLASSIFIED ADS" and "NEWSGROUPS" ON THE INTERNET, or through whatever way you think is most effective. To send this letter out to thousands of people and increase your profits, I suggest you use a Bulk E-mail company. Call 207-896-7915 to have your letter e-mailed. They are fast, effective and give excellent service. 100,000 emailings costs just $89.00 and they are running a special now of 50,000 additional mailings FREE!!! This letter has been proven perfectly legal for all of the above as long as you follow the instructions, because you are purchasing membership in our exclusive mailing list. The more you send out, the more YOU will make. We strongly encourage you to mail this letter to family, friends, and relatives as well. THIS IS A SERVICE AND IS 100% LEGAL. (Refer to title 18, section 1302 &1341 of the US Postal and Lottery Laws) Assume for example you get a 8% return rate. 1) When you mail out 200 letters, ONLY 16 people send you $1.00 2) Those 16 people mail out 200 letters, (3200 letters) and ONLY 256 people send you $1.00 3) Those 256 people mail out 200 letters, (51,200 letters) and ONLY 4,096 people send you $1.00 4) Those 4,096 people mail out 200 letters (812,200 letter) and ONLY 65,536 people send you $1.00 5) Those 69,536 people mail out 200 letters (13,107,200 letters) and ONLY 1,048,576 people send you $1.00. At the Next level your name-drops off the list. Think about it. Look what you WILL have BEFORE your name-drops off the list! I know this looks and sounds unbelievable. Just try it, and you will be happy that you did because you will received proof when THOUSANDS of ONE-DOLLAR BILLS start to pile up! ***MAKE SURE you send One US dollar to each of the six names on the list. (This is VERY IMPORTANT), with a note saying "PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR MAILING LIST" P.S. You've read this far, so let me ask you one simple question, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE? Even with a 1% return you will still get $100,000.00 in 90 DAYS!!! What you can gain is an income, like the example in this letter. You will have a very small expense, but you will reap HUGE potential returns. What do you have to lose? I invite you to JOIN our mailing list RIGHT NOW! Thanks you for your time. GOOD LUCK & BEST WISHES TO YOU !!!
I get suspicious whenever a chain letter has to point out 5 times that what it proposes is legal - and you should be skeptical, too. What is described above is NOT an "incredible business opportunity," it is a scam, and despite the letter's numerous protests, it is neither safe nor legal. By the very nature of such schemes, a few people stand to make a lot of money off the many. Being successful in these schemes is a lot harder than its supporters make it sound, but the lure of turning $6 into $6000 overnight may be too much for some to resist. Another version of the scam tells the story of a teenager who made tens of thousands of dollars right under his parents' noses - an admittedly attractive notion for most teens, making them particularly susceptible to this scheme. Parents of 15-year old - find $71,000 cash hidden in his closet. Does this headline look familiar? Of course it does. You most likely have seen this story recently featured on a major nightly news program (USA). This 15 year old's mother was cleaning and putting laundry away when she came across a large brown paper bag that was suspiciously buried beneath some clothes and a skateboard in the back of her 15-year-old son's closet. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock she got when she opened the bag and found it was full of cash. Five dollar bills, twenties, fifties and hundreds - all neatly rubber-banded in labeled piles. "My first thought was that he had robbed a bank", says the 41-year-old woman, "There was over $71,000 dollars in that bag- that's more than my husband earns in a year". The woman immediately called her husband at the car-dealership where he worked to tell him what she'd discovered. He came home right away and they drove together to the boy's school and picked him up. Little did they suspect that where the money came from was more shocking than actually finding it in the closet. As it turns out, the boy had been sending out via E-mail on the Internet a type of 'chain-letter' to E-mail addresses that he obtained off of the Internet. Everyday after school for the past 2 months, he had been doing this right on his computer in his bedroom. "I just got the E-mail one day and I figured what the heck, I put my name on it like the instructions said and I started sending it out", says the clever 15-year-old. The E-mail letter listed 3 addresses and contained instructions to send one $5 dollar bill to the person at the top of the list, then delete that address and move the other 2 addresses up, and finally to add your name to the bottom of the list. The letter goes on to state that you would receive several thousand dollars in five dollar bills within 2 weeks if you sent out the letter with your name at the bottom of the 3-address list "I get junk E-mail all the time, and I really didn't think it was gonna work", the boy continues. Within the first few days of sending out the E-mail, the Post Office Box that his parents had gotten him for his video-game magazine subscriptions began to fill up with not magazines, but envelopes containing $5 dollar bills. "About a week later I rode [my bike] down to the post office and my box had 1 magazine and about 300 envelopes stuffed in it. There was also a yellow slip that said I had to go up to the [post office] counter - I thought I was in trouble or something (laughs)". He goes on, "I went up to the counter and they had a whole box of more mail for me. I had to ride back home and empty out my backpack 'cause I couldn't carry it all". Over the next few weeks, the boy continued sending out the E-mail. "The money just kept coming in and I just kept sorting it and stashing it in the closet, I barely had time for my homework". He had also been riding his bike to several of the area's banks and exchanging the $5 bills for twenties, fifties and hundreds. "I didn't want the banks to get suspicious so I kept riding to different banks with like five thousand at a time in my backpack. I would usually tell the lady at the bank counter that my dad had sent me in [to exchange the money] and he was outside waiting for me. One time the lady gave me a really strange look and told me that she wouldn't be able to do it for me and my dad would have to come in and do it, but I just rode to the next bank down the street (laughs)." Surprisingly, the boy didn't have any reason to be afraid. The reporting news team examined and investigated the so-called 'chain-letter' the boy was sending out and found that it wasn't a chain-letter at all. In fact, it was completely legal according to US Postal and Lottery Laws, Title 18, Section 1302 and 1341, or Title 18, Section 3005 in the US code, also in the code of federal regulations, Volume 16, Sections 255 and 436, which state a product or service must be exchanged for money received. Every five dollar bill that he received contained a little note that read, "Please add me to your mailing list". This simple note made the letter legal because he was exchanging a service (adding the purchasers name to his mailing list) for a five dollar fee. The only way you will have seen anything like this on a "major nightly news program" is if that program was doing a piece on bogus Internet scams. The story is made up and so is the supposed pay-off of this deal. In reality, you will likely receive little or no return on your "investment" in either scam. On top of that, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that if you start such a letter, or even just forward one on, you are breaking the law! Title 18, section 1302 of the US Postal and Lottery Laws actually states that chain letters (e-mail or otherwise) are illegal "if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants." Selling a report (which, coincidentally, is just more propaganda about the scheme) or adding respondents to a mythical mailing list do not make this thing legal. BreakTheChain.org advocates against responding to any unsolicited "business opportunity" originated via e-mail. If you feel you've been the target of an e-mail scam such as this, contact your Internet Service Provider and forward the guilty e-mail message to the FTC (uce@ftc.gov). Break this Chain! References: Snopes.com, Federal Trade Commission |