This thread made me think of this question:
Has anybody ever acually received money (or panties!) from participating in a chain letter?
I won a couple of bucks with a lottery chain once, but it was pretty much limited to a small circle of friends: I got it from somebody who thought I’d get a kick out of it, and I sent it one to a couple of people I knew wouldn’t be annoyed by it. The idea was you bought a scratch-off ticket for the last person on the list, or something like that- so if you added your name, and sent it to three people, you’d stand to get three tickets. I would never have bothered with it, though, if it had been some anonymous chain letter, or had come from someone I rarely heard from.
I’ve never bothered to pass on the chain. On the bright side, I’ve never fallen ill to the curse of breaking the chain either.
I was able to peel the stamp off of one. Hey, I made 32 cents!
I spit my gum in the envelope and threw the whole thing out. As far as I know, I’m still alive.
Of course you can make money with a chain letter. Take the chain letter, find somebody with money, and threaten to give them a nasty paper cut if they don’t give you some.
Sure, it’s possible to make money…if you’re the one starting the letter, and hence aren’t parting with any of your money. The farther down you are, however, the less chance you have of getting a cent. If you receive one from someone you don’t know, chances are you’re already far too down to have any chance. Forget it.
Don’t pay any heed to the horrible consequences of breaking the chain, either. It HAS to happen at some point; the warning’s just a lame ploy to forestall it as long as possible.
One more thing…chain letters are illegal, so definitely do not put your name on one and pass it on.
Another serious problem with chain letter schemes is you have no control over what the next person does. They get your letter, put their name at the top of the list instead of the bottom, put their mom’s name on it too, leave your name off entirely, then send it on.
Now, I’m not sure what that “panties” comment meant, but there are chain letters that are meant just for fun. My mom got one where everyone sent potholders to the names on the list. A letter like this works, everyone gets some potholders, because no one wants to cheat. (Unless you want to make sure you get FEWER potholders.)
I recently got a chain letter. One of the “names” on the list was a company! They then told you where you could buy a mailing list to mail out more letters. (Hmm. I wonder if these two companies could be owned by the same person?) Just when you thought chain letter schemes couldn’t get more sleazy.
I read that thread before I read this one. Geez, that’s an old chain! Saw it years ago. I laugh at the protestations that it’s legal, and that the writer checked with the Post Office and they said it was legal, and that it’s totally legal. Oh, and it’s not illegal at all. “Ponzi scheme? No, it’s not a Ponzi scheme!”
If his identity could be found out, it might be fun to report him to the authorities. He could tell them it’s not illegal!
It’s pretty annoying that he didn’t take out all of the “carriage returns” to make it easier to read. Not only is he a scammer, he’s a lazy scammer!
Hey, one guy is in Long Beach! Maybe I should swing by on the way home from work and ask him how much he’s gotten from this thing? 
The panties comment comes from a “Panty Chain Letter”. I got one once. You send a pair of sexy panties to the person at the top of the list. You have to specify the size you wan beside your name. I threw it away. I have plenty of panties, besides, I’m very picky.
Yes, I’ve received tons of cash from chain letters and unfortunately, my ex-fiance died from the curse of not passing the chain on when I sent it to her (she had 5 days to mail it, on day 6 she choked to death on a Doberman Pinscher - don’t ask about it, it’s rather gruesome). Click right here and in less than 2 years you’ll be able to retire, just like me!
I made $10 dollars one week.
Then the next week it was $1234.
Then $15,873 the next week.
In four weeks I had $573,000,000,000.
You can too!!!
Wouldn’t it take more than a week to open 40,000 pieces of mail with a dollar in each one?
I doubt anyone ever got more than a dollar or two back from some schmuck who actually believed it would work.
On a related note. I think my first year of college I may have actually passed that scam along with my name on it. That was the first time I ever had email. Of course I never got any money.