# Is this even legal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010 "2000-01-09T21:53:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/1 "2000-01-09T21:53:00Z")
On another message board we’ve been getting a lot of messages like this one. IT’s obviously spam, but is it legal? If it’s not, can anyone cite me a law that i can quote back to these spammers? Anyway, here it is. It’s long, but I didn’t want to leave anything out. > [@](#): > > Hey, first of all, please don’t think this is fake and just blow it off. It isn’t. I’ve gotten money from this. > All you do is send 6 people $1, put your name on the list, and post the article. You recieve a lot of money in the mail! > > This is how and why it works. > > 1. Get 6 separate pieces of paper. > 2. Write the following on each piece of paper “PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR > MAILING LIST.” > 3. Get 6 US $1.00 bills and place ONE inside EACH of the 6 pieces of > paper so the bill will not be seen through the envelope > 4. Place one paper in each of the 6 envelopes and seal them. > 5. Mail the 6 envelopes to the following addresses: > > #1) M. Geraci 963 Wheatland Dr. Crystal Lake, IL. 60014. > #2) D. Gerow, P.O. Box 579574 Modesto, CA 95357-9574 > #3) James Hart, 5003 Raffee Cove Austin, TX 78731 > #4) A. Newmeyer, 1135 Michigan Ave. Apt B-20, East Lansing, MI 48823 > #5) S. Davis, 34941 Prospect Road, Dade City, FL. > #6) D. Mina, 1716 Prairie Vista Dr. Bettendorf, Iowa 52722 > > 1. Take the #1 name off the list that you see above > 2. Move the other names up (6 becomes 5, 5 becomes 4, etc.) > 3. Add YOUR Name as number 6 on the list. > 4. Post your amended article to at least 200 newsgroups. (I think there > are close to 24,000 groups) All you need is 200, but remember, the more > you post, the more money you make! > –HOW TO POST TO NEWSGROUPS---- > Step 1) You do not need to retype this entire letter to do your own > posting. Simply put your cursor at the beginning of > this letter and drag your > cursor to the bottom of this document, and select ‘copy’ > from the edit menu. This will copy the entire letter > into the computers memory. > Step 2) Open a blank “notepad” file under accessories in windows and > place > your cursor at the top of the blank page. From the ‘edit’ > menu select ‘paste’. This will paste a copy of the letter > into notepad so that you can add your name to the list. > Step 3) Save your new notepad file as a .txt file. If you want > to do your postings in different sittings, you’ll always > have this file to go back to. > Step 4) Use Netscape or Internet explorer and try searching for > various newsgroups (on-line forums, message > boards, chat sites, discussions.) > Step 5) Visit these message boards and post this article as a > new message by highlighting the text of this letter and > selecting paste from the edit menu. Fill in the Subject, > this will be the header that everyone sees as they > scroll through the list of postings in a particular group, > click the post message button. > > You’re done with your first one! > > All you have to do is jump to different newsgroupes and post away. > > **REMEMBER, THE MORE NEWSGROUPS YOU POST IN, THE MORE MONEY YOU WILL > MAKE!! BUT YOU HAVE TO POST A MINIMUM OF 200** > > That’s it! You will begin reciving money from around the world within > days! > > \*\* Now the WHY part: Out of 200 postings, say I receive only 5 replies > (a very low example). So then I made $5.00 with my name at #6 on the > letter. Now, each of the 5 persons who just sent me $1.00 make the > MINIMUM 200 postings, each with my name at #5 and only 5 persons respond > to each of the original 5, that is another $25.00 for me, now those 25 > each make 200 MINIMUM posts with my name at #4 and only 5 replies each, > I will bring in an additional $125.00! Now, those 125 persons turn > around and post the MINIMUM 200 with my name at #3 and only receive 5 > replies each, I will make an additional $626.00! OK, now here is the fun > part, each of those 625 persons post a MINIMUM 200 letters with my name > at #2 and they each only receive 5 replies, that just made me > $3,125.00!!! Those 3,125 persons will all deliver this message to 200 > newsgroups with my name at #1 and if still 5 persons per 200 newsgroups > react I will receive $15,625,00! With a original investment of only > $6.00! AMAZING! When your name is no longer on the list, you just take > the latest posting in the newsgroups, and send out another $6.00 to > names on the list, putting your name at number 6 again. And start > posting again. The thing to remember is, do you realize that thousands > of people all over the world are joining the internet and reading these > articles everyday, JUST LIKE YOU are now!! So can you afford $6.00 and > see if it really works?? I think so… People have said, "what if the > plan is played out and no one sends you the money? So what! What are the > chances of that happening when there are tons of new honest users and > new honest people who are joining the internet and newsgroups everyday > and are willing to give it a try? * * * [Cessandra](http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/miscjunk/profile.html) The Power Of Christ: 2000 years and He hasn’t come yet! ---
**Author:** ![aha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@aha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aha)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/2 "2000-01-09T22:03:00Z")
Sorry Cass no law against being an idiot…either on the internet or otherwise * * * “Ward, You’re upsetting the beaver.” Barbara Billingsley ---
**Author:** ![Ursa\_Major](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/3 "2000-01-09T22:24:00Z")
Looks like a pyramid scheme to me. California prosecutes these types of conmen all the time, and send a good portion of them to jail. It’s nothing new. I even remember an episode of Dragnet(1967) that dealt with such a case (“the stories are true, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent”). ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/4 "2000-01-09T22:25:00Z")
That’s what I thought – pyramid scheme. Somebody told me that there were ways around the laws, anybody know what they are? * * * [Cessandra](http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/miscjunk/profile.html) The Power Of Christ: 2000 years and He hasn’t come yet! ---
**Author:** ![Kent4mmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/34f0e0/32.png) [@Kent4mmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent4mmy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/5 "2000-01-09T22:30:00Z")
Anything that starts off with “Hey, first of all, please don’t think this is fake and just blow it off. It isn’t. I’ve gotten money from this” can be thought of as fake and be blown off. ---
**Author:** ![Ursa\_Major](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/6 "2000-01-09T22:31:00Z")
Here’s what the Feds have to say about them: [http://www.bbb.org/alerts/ftc.asp](http://www.bbb.org/alerts/ftc.asp) Here’s an explaination of pertainent California law: [http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/pyramid.htm](http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/pyramid.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/7 "2000-01-09T22:35:00Z")
Multi-Level Marketing companies are pyramid schemes. To stay legal they have to have a real product that a person who does not sign up as a distributor or dealer or director or what have you can actually put to some use. An example would be Amway’s cleaning products. Several of them do have products, but distribution of the products is never (or, to be charitable, rarely) their reason for being. They exist to build “downlines” that are, basically, the subsequent suckers. ---
**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/8 "2000-01-09T23:16:00Z")
Personal rule of thumb - never trust anything sent by a person who can’t spell “receive.” * * * Clocks are big. Machines are heavy. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/9 "2000-01-09T23:17:00Z")
What is to stop you from just putting your name on the list and not sending out the money? Seems kind of dumb to me. ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/10 "2000-01-09T23:54:00Z")
If you don’t pay up, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny show up and break your kneecaps. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2000, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/11 "2000-01-09T23:56:00Z")
Surely this is just the electronic version of the old chain letters? Ignore, ignore… or send off the dosh if you prefer - the old ones used to say that if you broke the chain, by not sending the money, or whatever, you wd die within the year - I see they’ve dropped that from this version, which I suppose is progress * * * Too tired to care whether I make any sense at all ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/12 "2000-01-10T00:20:00Z")
No its not legal & yes you can lose your acct for sending it out. They probably used a mass mailer, capable of sending out 5M/day. Sometimes I get bored, write them back, say ‘WHen it makes $10,000, have it call me, Ill come pick it up.’ ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/13 "2000-01-10T00:54:00Z")
Hmmm… Ponzi schemes like this… Sorta reminds me of Social Security. * * * You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right. –Lyndon B. Johnson ---
**Author:** ![N\_oR\_jVIaL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce7236/32.png) [@N\_oR\_jVIaL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N_oR_jVIaL)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/14 "2000-01-10T02:07:00Z")
Want to get rich? Simply send five bucks to each of the following names, remove the top one, add yours to the bottom, and mail it to six more suck…err…uhh…astute investors. N oR jVIaL No j2 Ma|\_ jVoR IV)AL n0 R m/\ |\_ N oj2|Vl/\ L (Voj2 jVIa|\_ ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/15 "2000-01-10T02:27:00Z")
I actually participated in something like that once. Didn’t use dollars, it asked for postcards - stuff from where you lived and such like. Never heard anything from anyone. * * * Cave Diem! Carpe Canem! ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/16 "2000-01-10T02:49:00Z")
A friend of mine once sent me an email to participate in one of these, where instead of sending money, you sent the top person on the list a pair of underwear (they’d speficied what kind & size they wanted). I promptly put in in my deleted folder, as I truly hate these kinds of scams. Several weeks later I was at her house when she brought in the mail. She was all excited because there was a package in there with, can you believe it, a pair of her specified kind of panties! When I asked her why someone would be sending her thong panties in the mail, she reminded me of the email she’d sent. She said she’d already gotten well over a dozen pair, most of which were from Victoria’s Secret! Seems the reason this one worked so well was that it was just between women, and only passed along to close friends by someone they trusted not to be scamming them. There were no postings on bulletin boards and it wasn’t meant as a get rich quick scheme. Ridiculous as it sounds, it made me regret trashing it - I could’ve used a dozen new pair of underwear! * * * “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/17 "2000-01-10T03:47:00Z")
The OP was definitely illegal. If you want someone to quote, go to the MMF Hall of Humiliation at [http://ga.to/mmf/](http://ga.to/mmf/) . * * * “East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. [www.sff.net/people/rothman](http://www.sff.net/people/rothman) ---
**Author:** ![SavageNarce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2000, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/18 "2000-01-10T17:24:00Z")
It’s illegal because it’s a chain letter. It’s illegal because it uses the mail system to propogate a chain letter. It’s illegal in many jurisdictions because it involves “spamming” by suggesting posting the letter to newsgroups (other than chainletters.rec) It’s illegal in those same jurisdictions because they spammed _you_ by sending it to you in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s not illegal to be stupid, so these things continue to exhibit a life of their own. I recommend [http://www.eff.org/pub/Net\_culture/Folklore/Chain\_letters/](http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Folklore/Chain_letters/) for further information, as well as some possibilities for humorous responses. * * * Computers in the future may weigh no more than 15 tons. -Popular Mechanics, 1949 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/19 "2000-01-11T05:56:00Z")
it would be an illegal lottery if done in Canada - I’ve helped prosecute cases like this one. * * * and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe ---
**Author:** ![Murphy\_S\_Law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Murphy\_S\_Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Murphy_S_Law)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-even-legal/6010/20 "2000-01-11T06:33:00Z")
Just because I want to add my two cents and because this is from the United States Postal Service: [Chain Letters](http://www.usps.gov/postalinspectors/chainlet.htm)