Wealth on the net

Make money fast
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"Make money fast" was a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so famous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. In anti-spammer slang, the name wealth on the net is often abbreviated "MMF". Wealth on the net.
Contents

* 1 History
* 2 MMF parodies
* 3 External links
o 3.1 Parodies

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History

The original "Make Money Fast" letter was written in 1988 by a person who said his name was Dave Rhodes. Biographical details are not certain - in fact, it's not clear that this is the person's actual name - but it is often said Rhodes was a student at Columbia Union College, a Christian college in Maryland, who wrote a text file chain letter titled "Make Money Fast", and uploaded it to a wealth on the net nearby BBS. The scam soon reached the Internet, where it was forwarded over e-mail and Usenet. although it wasn't until wealth on the net spamming became a major problem in early-to-mid 1994 that "Make money fast" exploded.

The text of "Make money fast" originally claimed to be "perfectly legal." It encouraged readers of the email to forward one dollar to a list of people provided in the text, and to add their own name and address to the bottom of the list. Using the theory behind pyramid schemes, the resulting chain of money flowing back and forth would supposedly deliver a reward of thousands of dollars to the ones participating in the chain, as copies of their chain spread and more and more people sent one dollar to their address.

In fact, the idea of a money-forwarding email letter turned out to be worthless. When the popularity of the Internet exploded in the mid-1990s (and spamming became a serious problem), literally millions of copies of "Make money fast" were forwarded to unsuspecting Internet users by thousands of different persons. It became one of the most annoying and persistent spams in existence. It was soon decided by anti-spam activists and Internet service providers alike that "Make money fast" was wealth on the net worthy of being deleted immediately upon being spotted, and users forwarding the chain letter would swiftly have their accounts terminated.

Variations on "Make money fast" have evolved, usually by spammers who change the subject of their email to "This really works!," "Try it, it works!," or "You are a winner!"

As for Rhodes, details remain elusive. A common tale is that he was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and wrote his own Web site denouncing "Make Money Fast" as part of the sentence. References to the site are common online, but the site itself is wealth on the net believed to be a hoax.
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MMF parodies

The chain letters follow a rigidly predefined format or template with minor variations (such as claiming to be from a retired lawyer or claiming to be selling "reports" in order to attempt to make the scheme appear lawful). They quickly became repetitive, causing them to be bait for widespread satire or parody. For example, one parody claimed to be the first such chain letter, saying that palæontologists recently deciphered a statement painted on a cave wall that begins "MAKE SPIKY CLUBS FAST!!!

In some cases, the parodies have been mistaken as being real (and the original posters mailbombed or reported for net.abuse) by readers who stop at the words "My name is Dave Rhodes..." and read no further.

Chain letters
Chain letters are illegal. Chain letters are a waste of time. Net sites which do not discourage electronic chain letters risk losing their net connections, as they have the potential for wasting great amounts of bandwidth and disk space.
What are chain letters?
Chain letters are letters which promise a phenomenal return on a small effort. The simplest form of a chain letter contains a list of x people. You are supposed to send something to the top person on the list. Then you remove the top person on the list, sliding the second person into the top position, add yourself in the bottom position, make y copies of the letter, and mail them to your friends. The promise is that you will eventually receive y**x somethings in return.
Why do people think chain letters could work?
The reason people are even tempted by these schemes is that the human mind does not have an intuitive view of geometrical progressions. Suppose we presume the chain letter to have a list of five people. You are asked to send one postcard to the person on top of the list, and remail the letter to five friends. You are promised thousands of postcards from all over the world if everyone participates. Your cost: a postcard, five photocopies and envelopes, and six stamps. Not muchwealth on the net  to risk to see what comes back...
Why can't chain letters work?
Now let's assume that everyone on the list is honest and just perpetuating the "chain." (After all, these letters do emhpasize being HONEST.) Then if everyone on the list has made five copies, you are one of 5**5 or 3,125 people receiving copies in your "generation" of the letter. So far, the numbers don't seem outlandish. And looking the other way, you stand to get postcards from 3125 people. That doesn't seem impossible either. But view it as the "chain" you're in the middle of, and there will be 5**11 or 48,828,125 people receiving copies in that generation of the letter. If distribution were confined to the United States, there wouldn't be enough people left who hadn't already received a copy for the next generation.
A brief analysis of the Dave Rhodes chain letter
The Dave wealth on the net Rhodes chain letter is a famous example of electronic chain letter which has appeared several times on the Internet. It has a list of 10 people and suggests you forward the letter to to bulletin boards (not people)! A twist with this letter is that you start to receive money when you get to position 5 on the list. Just assume for this analysis that only the person who posted the message you read was honest (that is, just making copies and passing it along - not in on the beginning). Let's see how the generations go until you could see some results:

Copies in Your
generation postion

10 --
100 10
1,000 9
10,000 8
100,000 7
1,000,000 6
10,000,000 5

So by the time you could get any money out of this, the message would have appeared on over 11 milion bulletin boards! Do you think there are that many? Even if we were only talking people, that would be a healthy number. There aren't enough people in the US (let alone bulletin boards) to maintain two more generations.
Do chain letters take other forms?
The idea of each participant needing to bring in several more to perpetuate a program, sometimes also called a pyramid or Ponzi Scheme, is not confined to letters. In the 1980's, there were Pyramid Clubs, some costing $1000 to join. I just recently saw a pyramid phone calling scheme. And multi-level marketing (eg, Amway) also has elements of the pyramid, in that more money is to be made by bringing in other sales people than by selling the product yourself.
Further reading:
 

 _

Some chain letters
* lucky2.letter (Some chain letters are just for luck - amusement)
* A pyramid phone calling scheme (The first I've seen! Note: even if pyramids worked, the advertised numbers are wrong.)
* How far is near? (a love game played since 1887)
* God and Tenure (Christian: Why God never received tenure at any university)
* Good luck chain letter ("This prayer has been sent to you for good luck." This is an ancient - in computer terms - chain letter, dating from 1982! Check out all the headers.)
* New VER of "EARN M O R E MONEY" from INTERNET! (A twist on the usual "pay the guy at the top of the list", adding payments to others - including the immediate reposter - giving the appearance you'll come out ahead faster.)
* EARN EASY MONEY ON THE NET! (Emphasis on honesty. "... you should know upfront: 1. You CAN NOT make 50,000 in a month or even six months by following the instructions found in this letter, ..." Though the purported "business" of this letter is selling mailing lists, the poster has the honesty to admit he's not bothering to sell the mailing lists. My reply - which I couldn't resist - is included. I received at least one "thank you" from a newbie who avoided the embarassment of participating.)
* Sick Girl ("Little Kimberly Anne is dying of awealth on the net  horrible tropical disease.")
* With sex all things are possible (a long list of headers remains attached)
* Stop worrying about business and start playing golf (a long list of headers remains attached)
* MEGA$NETS (This "program" actually adresses the honesty problem in most chain letter schemes. It's been pretty well debunked.)
* Neiman Marcus Recipe letter (A letter spreading the myth "I got ripped off buying this recipe. I'm getting back at the company by giving the recipe away. Pass it on to everyone you know!" Debunked here.)
* The Chain Letter Protection Pact (This chain letter will protect you from all other chain letters.)
* PBS Funding Chain Letter petition (Another well intentioned chain letter gone awry)
* Bill Gates BETA Chain Letter (forward to 1000 people and get $1000 and Windows98, from "Your friend, BIll Gates" - it's debunked here)
* The Karen Liddell reports chain letter (and her apology for getting involved with it.)
* Bill Gates/Walt Disney Jr. Chain Letter (A different twist on the Bill Gates BETA chain letter)
Some anti-chain letters
* anti chain letter

* anti-chain letter (to respond to a chain letter, serious)
* Nothing to Lose but Our Chains (with links to other chain letter information)
* The Anti-Chain Letter (With Stupidity, Anything Is Possible)
* The World's Most Pointless Chain Letter ("Here's the deal. I'm sending you this chain letter for no reason.")
* Email Facts of Life (Several "Forward this!" myths debunked in one shot)
Chain Letter Humor
* MakeMoneyFast (Mike Jittlov; Funny, with nice ASCII graphics)
* The St. Paul Chain Letter (Did St. Paul write the first?)
* Todd's Humor Archive: reverse chain letter (fwd)
* Citation Chain Letter ("Dear Fellow Scientist: This letter has been around the world at least seven times. It has been to many major conferences.")
* Chain Letters
o Why ask why
o With sex all things are possible
* Project Galactic Guide Archives -- Chain Letters (The Living Letter Theory)
* The Mother of all Chain Letters ("This chain letter was started nine hundred years ago by an obscure German monk named Brother Shlongus of Klinsbrukken ...")
* Chain Letters Work.... Really! (Kiss someone you love when you receive this letter - From rec.humor.funny)
* Make Enemies Fast (Hans L. Bodlaender, Utrecht University)
* Great sex! ("YOU WILL EXPERIENCE GREAT SEX within four days of receiving this letter, ...")
* Russian Chain Letter ("Dear Komrades, My name is David Senovich...")
* Make Flames Fast! ("Follow these instructions EXACTLY, and in 20 to 60 days you will have received over 50,000 FLAMES! *Guaranteed*")
* Make Friends Fast! (Why we probably wealth on the net won't get a response from the Voyager Interstellar Mission.)
* Get Arrested Fast! ("Hi, I'm Dave Rhodes, and I'm in jail.")
* The Amazing Chain Column (A column by Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle - "3. Put the amazing chain column on your refrigerator.")
* Mike Jittlov's Big Money ("Dear Friend: If you're insane, please take a moment and read this...")
* SOCK-IT-RICH ("The Bureau of Missing Socks' Pyramid Club will start you on the road to fortune and fame.")
* Good Times virus spoof ("Goodtimes will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer.")
* MAKE PENIS FAST!!! ("Follow these instructions EXACTLY, and in 3 to 6 weeks you will have received well over 50,000 inches of penis, all yours.")
* Gullibility virus warning (Pass it on - No, DON'T!)
* Make L$D Fast (A spoof of the Dave Rhodes letter)
* Chain Letter Offer ("This really works and is almost legal!" Another Dave Rhodes spoof)
* Make Sandwiches Fast! ("Firstly take two slices of bread...")
* Stupid URL Pyramid Scheme (A pyramid scheme for gathering links to your site. Demonstrates pretty well how far these schemes do/don't go. Started here by Chris Koeberle, kodiak@flail.com)
* FREE ORAL PLEASURE! (via Heckler's Online)
* Yahoo! (Yahoo category for chain letter parodies)
* The bread menace
Some Official Positions
* The US Postal Service explains that chain letters are illegal when they use the US mail to request or transmit "things of value." (They also have information about a lot of other nastiness going on in and through the mail under their Inspection Service menu.)
* EFF's (Extended) Guide to the Internet - The Chain Letter (Brief mention)
* What's UCS policy on chain letters? (Indiana University Policy)
* Policy on Email Chain Letters (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Multi-Level Marketing
* Amway (from The Skeptic's Dictionary)
* Amway: The Untold Story (A collection of information specifically about Amway)
(Check out this ex-mirror of the untold story)
* MLMLAW ("The Definitive Legal Resource for Direct Selling, Multilevel, and Network Marketing Companies" by Kevin D. Grimes, an attorney practicing in Idaho Falls, Idaho)
* multi-level marketing (A nice collection of links including definitions, advisories, analysis, and examples)
* Multi-Level Marketing (The US Postal Service's take on MLM)
* MLM/NWM Legality Test (Simple test wealth on the net of the legality of MLM schemes from a lawyer specializing in the area)
Miscellaneous
* Chain letters = next net disaster ? (Ira Baxter) (Chain letter mentioned in RISKS digest)
* alt.make.money.fast Mini FAQ (Joshua Rowe - josh@sanctum.com.au)
* The FBI Response to a Dave Rhodes chain letter (actually, an April Fools Day posting)
* Chain Letter & Pyramid Scheme Rip-Offs (from the Security Resource Net)
* EFF "Chain Letters" Archive
* Warning: Dave Rhodes and Other Chain Letters (from the The Investment FAQ (misc.invest), by Christopher Lott)
* Make-A-Wish Foundation: Chainletters (Their official statement about chain letters)
* pyramid schemes, chain letters and Ponzi schemes (from The Skeptic's Dictionary)
* E-Mail Chain Letters - The Police Notebook (The University of Oklahoma Department of Public Safety)
* Stopping Chain Letters (Dr M.E. Kabay, IBM; Stopping a "harmless" chain letter snowball fight)
* Two Internet Chain Letters are Hoaxes (A Better Business Bureau alert about M&M/Mars and Procter & Gamble chain letters)
* [product] flash (Discussion of junk email including chain letters)
Unsorted links
I don't spend as much time maintaining this page as I'd like. Here are a number of links which were sitting in my bookmark file waiting to be moved in here. Though I don't have the time at the moment to sort them into the above catagories, leaving them here unsorted is probably more useful than letting them clutter my private bookmark file.
* make money fast usps ("It's supposedly the USPS standard letter about chain letters.")
* Illegal use of the 'net (A "semi FAQ" written by William G. Dunn, wdunn@access1.digex.net, posted in response to a question on the legality of a Dave Rhodes letter. Includes quotes of the US Code often referenced in chain letters.)
* Pyramid Schemes: Not What They Seem! (A publication prepared by the Direct Selling Foundation posted by Douglas J. Goglia, dgoglia@escape.com)
* Johann's AIDS/HIV Email Chain Letter Page (j-beda@pobox.com discusses using chain letters for a good cause - eg, AIDS awareness)
* Good Times Virus Hoax FAQ (An explanation of the Good Times virus alert - above)
* MAKE.MONEY.FAST and Other Internet Hoaxes (Covers Dave Rhodes, Craig Shergold, and a recent joke about Bill Gates aquiring the Catholic Church!)
* Fortuna Alliance (The Federal Trade Comission prosecutes a "pyramid investment fraud" perpetuated on the net)
* Pyramid Schemes (Robert Teeter - rteeter@sonic.net's take on chain letters and pyramid schemes)
* MMF Hall of Humiliation (sisyphus6@technologist.com publishes a list of Make Money Fast posters - and other related scams - good site!)
* A Saint Without God (An essay by Steven Rubio on faith and faithlessness inspired by a chain letter)
* Pyramid Schemes (An analysis and warning about pyramid schemes and chain letters from Utah's Department of Commerce)
* Media release 23 April 1999 - Fair Trading issues Pyramid Warning (Western Australia Ministry of Fair Trading)
* Lotteries (Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1301-1301 & 3005; The law referenced in and pertaining to chain letters)
* Yahoo! - Email Hoaxes and Chain Letters (Yahoo category for chain letters)
* The Make Money Fast Myth Page ("Or... How to see your $5.00 winging its way away..."; Covers laws, examples, what you can do)
* Stupid tricks (includes Dave Rhodes and MAKE.MONEY.FAST in a discussion of net.legends)
* Chain E-Mail (American Cancer Society: A fraudulent chain letter claiming to raise funds for cancer research; the name, Jessica Mydek, is obviously phony if you think about it.)
* You have been lied to. (A response to the Jessica Mydek letter from Robert Fischler, rfischle@indiana.edu. wealth on the net If you pass on a chain letter you'll be lucky if some of your responses are this polite!)
* Astrian Links - Acceptable Use Policy (Among the "no-no's" listed for which they will remove customers is explicitly listed "chain letters or multilevel marketing schemes")
* Verizon Online - Acceptable Use Policy ("Ponzi Schemes/Chain letters/ Pyramid Schemes: Posting of such scams may be unlawful and is prohibited on our service.")
* Ponzi or Pyramid??? (Gerald P. Nehra, an attorney specializing in multi-level/network marketing, explains the difference; for 9 years, Nehra was Director of the Legal Division at Amway Corporation)
* PYRAMID, PONZI & INVESTMENT SCHEMES: Is One Hiding Behind Your MLM Program? (Leonard W. Clements, a multi-level marketing advocate, describes how to recognize a pyramid scheme))
* Pyramid schemes topple Albanian regime (It's true! A set of links to news articles)
* EarthLink's Subscriber Acceptable Use Policy (specifically bans "Posting or emailing of scams such as 'make-money-fast' schemes or 'pyramid/chain'letters.")
* Chain E-Mail: Heart-Rending Pleas Are Sometimes Counterfeit (From NY Times - requires registration - good article about Jessica Mydek)
* 1st Family (Is their promotional program a pyramid scheme?)
* Charles K. Ponzi Website (The name is synonymous with fraud)
* MLM Alerts: On the Net (A large number of links related to Multi-level marketing)
* SECRETS OF SUCCESS WITH CHAIN LETTERS (This "report" seems to play it both ways. It says "It's best not to get involved in ANY kind of chain letter scheme because they are ALL illegal" and straight out "Don't get involved!" Then it proceeds to give you advice about who to send your chain letters to.)
* False Profits: Analysis of Network and Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) (A book ad - First chapter is online)
* HoaxBusters (The Computer Incident Advisory Capability of the US Department of Energy has a nice discussion of chain letters and other hoaxes)
* Truth Computer Virus Myths & Hoaxes (includes a section on chain letters)
* Charm Squares and Chain Letters (Chain letters invade the quilting community)
* Chain Letters (A personal response to chain letters)
* American Cancer Society 3¢ Hoax (Jessica Mydek)
* Legal Principles of Multilevel Marketing (Great reference to determine if you're looking at a pyramid scheme)
* Adcomplain Home Page ("Adcomplain is a tool for reporting inappropriate commercial e-mail and usenet postings, as well as chain letters and 'make money fast' postings.")
* The Ultimate Prosperity Page (FTC) (Too good to be true? You bet!)
* The Legal ABC's of MLM (an article by Gerald Nehra)
* Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: The Rules of the Road (from the FTC; has some good tips about MLMs)
* Trouble @ the In-Box (from the FTC; a discussion of spam)
* The Perils of Amway
* EP: Virus or Hoax Email Warnings
* Pyramidisivut ("Pyramid Pages: Critical articles about wealth on the net MLM, readers comments and stories, FAQ -- mostly in Finnish, but with an English mirror of Amway: The Untold Story)
* mlm scams (quite a list of links)
* Identifying Illegal Pyramid Schemes - by Jeffrey Babener (on telling the difference between a legitimate MLM plan and a pyramid)
* Off-Shore MLM: U.S. v. Fortuna by Jeffery A. Babener (an MLM analysis of the FTC case against Fortuna Alliance)
* Double Trouble!! (Binary Compensation Plans) by Spencer M. Reese (a new twist on MLM marketing)
* ECS's Policy on Chain Letters (Engineering Computing Services, Georgia Tech)
* Pyramid Schemes, Ponzi Schemes, and Other Frauds (Yet another page clearly explaining why "If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.")
* UC computer fraud case shows how net can be misused (Cincinnati Enquirer - November 7, 1997)
* Archive of Email Forwards (Save bendwidth -- point your friand at an entry in this list!)
* Chain Letters, Get Rich Schemes and Calls for Help
* Chain Letter Evolution (A scholarly study of chain letters -- emphasis on the paper variety. The best I've seen.)
o Paper Chain Letter Archive
* Fight Cyberjunk! ("One Small Effort to Turn the Tide of Cyberjunk" Basic message: Check it out -- Don't pass it on.)
* Those Thrilling Days (great article on Fortuna Alliance by Paul deArmond in Albion Monitor)
* Chain e-mail and SPAMs (University of Arkansas)
* ACN FREE INTERNET ACCESS!!!!!!!!!! (This turns "pyramid power" on it's head. You lose when the people you brought in bring in their quota.)
* Chain Letter Dilemma
* Chain hoax (How many hoaxes can we hit at once?)
* $$$$$ MAKE ENEMIES FAST $$$$$ (An IETF "Interned Draft" document which gives a good analysis of pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, and how to really persue commerce on the net)
* Women's Rights petition (Another example of trying to use chain letters to promote a good cause. This poorly designed scheme would result in many duplications of signatures -- and a huge volume of mail to the collection point. If you try to return the petitions to the address specified, the mail is bounced.)
* Anti Chain Mail Entente (ACME) (Humorous - from FunnyMail.com)
* What every woman should have/know... (Yet another "Pass it on for luck" bit of humor)
* Esquemas de Pirâmide (A Portugese page on pyramid schemes)
* State and Federal Enforcement against MLM Companies (Thayer C. Lindauer, "The MLM Lawyer")
* Lose Money Fast! (An anti-chain scheme site with some original parodies)
* Shaking the Money Tree (A MetroActive News & Issues feature on Multilevel Marketing by Ami Chen Mills)
* Pyramid Schemes (A couple of articles from AOL's legal department about pyramid schemes. They look like reprints ofrom New York's ex-Attorney General Dennis Vacco)
* How to Make Tenure Fast: A Chain Letter for Scientists (a copy of the citation chain letter published in the New York Times)
* IJMC - Please Read, A Child's Dying Wish (International Junk Mail Clearinghouse debunks this one)
* Yahoo!'s Make Money Fast parody list
* Chainletter Hoaxes (From Hoaxkill.com)
* Chain Letters Anonymous (CSICOP -- if you must send one on, send it here)
* Electronic Chain Mail (comments on several examples by the Automated Systems Security Incident Strike Team, Department of Energy)
* Where Do E-Mails Go?? (A chain letter experiment forwarded by a list owner. There is no attempt to collect any results. It's just a curiosity to pass on -- please don't.)
* On Spam: Wasting time on the Internet (Bill Gates himself comments on spam and chain letters -- including the Bill Gates hoax letter)
* Multilevel Marketing Plans (Cautionary message from the FTC)
* The Demographics of Chain Letters (anti-chain letter rant)
* An email experiment (A third grade class starts a chain letter as an experiment.)
* Another email experiment (Yet another third grade class starting an experimental chain letter. Perhaps the teachers need an education in geometric progressions?)
* Grade 5 Email Project (The fifth grade of Mill Cove District School in Nova Scotia embarked on an experiment with a chain letter -- and got overwhelmed!)
* Chain Letters Q&A (University of Washington question about email chain letter dating from March, 1994)
* The Chain E-Mail Index (lots of anti chain letter links)
* letter response to chain letters (a verbose, informative, canned response)
* The "No Forward" Campaign Homepage! ("Our goal is to eliminate those pesky chain-letters that are plaguing the internet.")
* The Predator Chain Letter (a chain letter that eats other chain letters?)
* Charlatans, Cons, Counterfeits, Fakes, Forgeries, Frauds, Hoaxes, Scams, Schemes & Swindles (A good site for determining the truth to many "pass it on" messages)
* IRISS '98: Virtual Urban Legends: Investigating the Ecology of the World Wide Web ("This paper traces the evolution of several ecological phenomena connected with the spread of replicating messages on the World Wide wealth on the net Web (web) and Internet (net)." A great discussion of chain letters, virus warnings, etc. by Edmund Chattoe, Centre for Research on Simulation in the Social Sciences, University of Surrey.)
* Good Times (A humorous poke at Good Times warnings from rec.humor.funny)
* virus: virus: Seeking chain letters (A request for chain letters from the author of the great Chain Letter Evolution article above)
* The Chain Letter Challange! (Judy Vorfeld of Office Support Services discusses getting sucked in by hoax warnings)
* Hate Crimes Prevention Act petition (A Gay Rights email petition designed much like the Afghani Women's Rights petition above)
* Chain Letters (Quite a collection)
* Bane of Bovine (from Life in the Cosmc Burp)
* MLM Watch (A Skeptical Guide to Multilevel Markting)
* What's Spam and What's the Problem? (Chapter 1 of O'Reilly's Stopping Spam by Alan Schwartz & Simson Garfinkel -- search for "(Can't) Make Money Fast")
* How Chain Letters Really Work (a nice simple analysis of both the math and how people do make money on them -- honesty be damned)
* The Billy Evans chain letter
* Breaking The Chain: The Truth About Chain Letters
* EXTRA: Daily News (chain letter fundraiser that actually worked!)
* Chain letter brings windfall to cancer center (Seattle Times: more on Carol Farkas chain letter)
* Chain letter raises $800,000 for a cancer centre (Global Ideas Bank: Farkas chain letter)
* Urban Legend Chocolate Chip Cookies (Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe)
* FAQ: Reacting to chain letters
* Re: TRUST ME! THIS POST CAN EARN MONEY FOR YOU!!!! (R. Scott Perry)
* Chain Letters are highly illegal and stupid as well (a copy of a chain letter with comments in the margin)
* Chain Letters Are Illegal (Law Offices of Abbott & Walker)
* Craig Shergold from Gene Spafford
* The Hubble Recipe (a parody of the Neiman Marcus chain letter)
* Chain Letters and Forwards ("Electronic Chain Letters and Mindless Forwards are SPAM!!")
* The Boulder Pledge ("A Modest Proposal to End the Junk Mail Plague" from Roger Ebert)
* --THE $250 COOKIE: THE FACT OF THE MATTER-- (Neiman Marcus Cookie story)
* The Hoax Stops Here!!! ("Why you should not forward all those Hoaxes, Viruses warnings, and Urban Legends!")
* A Chain dollar bill I once received.
* MLM Survivors Homepage (Headlines and breaking news about Amway and other Multi-Level Marketing businesses)
* SCAMS, SPAM, FRAUDS, HOAXES, JUNK EMAIL AND IDENTITY THEFT
* Chain Letter - an excersize in exponential growth (a parody of chain letters threatening bad luck)
* Lucky Web Page ("This is a LuckY web page. If you link it into your personal home page, you will get luck.")
* Unleashing The IdeaVirus (A book by Seth Godin on marketing using the pyramid concept to spread your message)
* Do e-mail petitions work? (Salon: "Chain letters and spam rarely impress politicians -- but they might listen to a more personal breed of Web activism.")
* The Jesus Pyramid (Cleveland Scene Online: Evangelism where "recruiting is absolutely the number-one priority for new members.")
* Hoax e-mail becomes government worker's nightmare (Rose Lambert, a US gov't worker, is sorry she passed along an urban legend warning)
* Claire Swire (demonstrates how quickly forwarding a message can multiple)
* Break the Chain: Stop Junk E-Mail and Misinformation
* Do Not Respond To Sarabande Chain Letter (Brandeis's official response to the Afghanistan Women's Rights petition)
* Don't forward email petitions ("Email petitions do more harm than good.")
* are email petitions spam? (A mathematical discussion)
* www.e-petition.org (a web-based alternative to the chain letter style petitions)
* Save the [blank]! ("There are numerous problems with pass-it-along email petitions")
* Dead Chain Letters (A page set up in penance for forwarding the Afghanistan Womens Right's petition)
* Latest HOAX, Scam, Urban Legend, Chain E-Mail, etc. Information! (A collection of chain emails among other things)
* Scientists Decode the First Message From an Alien wealth on the net Civilization ("Simply send 6 x 10^50 atoms ....")
* E-Mail Junkyard (a chain letter archive)
* Chain Letters ("All chain letters (without exception) are started by mailing list companies.")
* Chain Letters (an analysis and some samples, by Fraud Bureau, Inc., Ontario, CA)
* Make Me Money - FAST!!! (a parody of Make Money Fast)
* PayPal Chain Letter (uses PayPal to avoid US Mail)
* Fundraising Chain Letter Embarrasses Hospital (Philanthropy News Digest; 4/9/97)
* Volunteer's Chain Letter Embarrasses a Hospital (NYTimes.com Abstract of article about Carol Farkas letter)
* Just Say NO to Chain Letters ("Why you should never ever distribute chain letters")
* NPR : Funding Hoax Explained
* Mail Policies (Cal Poly University policy states "Chain Letters are not permitted on our system or on the Internet as as a whole.")
* TIP: Beware email chain letters
* Make Money Fast Demystified {"Does Microsoft Provide Computer Upgrades For Free? I don't think so....")
* How Hoaxers Save on Stamps, or Don't Believe Everything You're E-mailed (NY Times)
* Don't Believe Everything You Read (ScamBusters.org: "some informative resources you can use to find out if that `urgent' email is legitimate")
* Caught up in chain mail (SocietyGuardian.co.uk: "some charities have found out just how powerful email can be, especially when it is used against them")
* Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 30 (the UK law against Pyramid Selling Schemes; yes, they are illegal in the UK)
* Dave Rhodes' Web Site (claims to be *the* Dave Rhodes -- Really?)
* A Dose Of My Own - Break the chain (letters) - August 8, 2002 (a good column on chain letters by Dr. Rolour Garcia)
* Chain letters: Who profits and why. How do they work? Who makes the money? (Bob Sherman does a good logical debunking)
* Multilevel Marketing in Immigrant Communities (a pyramid scheme in Silicon Valley)
* Foundation seeks to break purported chain letter appeal (Make-A-Wish wants to stop Craig Shergold letter - The Times Argus Online)
* Pyramid scheme gets dressed up ('Women helping women' program is a 'fraud,' officials say. - The Sacramento Bee)
* A note on "Quilt Trees"/ Charm Exchanges ("Please don't send me mail inviting me to join a 'quilt tree' exchange.")
* Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet (How to do it right)
* British variation of Dave Rhodes chain letter
* Great Flash presentation on forwarding emails (...you have to send this message to at least 5 of your friends or else...")
* Your Private Gold-Mine - The Invitation (A cross between a report chain and a gifting club -- both scams)
* The Gifting Club "Gotcha" (A warning from the FTC)
* Chain Letters ("a brief set of guidelines which may help to save a few of us")
* MMF and Other Chain Letters (Legality, Netiquette, Advice to New Users)
* Shannon Syfrett (snopes.com: A 9th grader named Shannon Syfrett is collecting e-mail responses for a school science fair project.)
* Kellie Lawton (snopes.com: Another student collecting email responses)
* Pyramid Schemes (Cockeyed.com: a good explanation of "gifting club" scams)
* Chain Letters and Hoaxes (in response to a chain letter virus warning from his mother)
* Spam, Chain Letters, Etc. (Princeton's policy)
* Urban Legends Reference Pages: Inboxer Rebellion (Internet Petitions) (The legendary Snopes folks weigh on on the ineffectiveness of online email petitions)
* Chain Letters (entry in h2g2, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything.")
* Anti-chain letter (from Romania and the anti-chain letter plea it directs you to)
* MAKE THOUSANDS IN 60 DAYS WITH £10.00!!! (British version of report chain letter; Want to find lots of these chain letters? Search for the USPS phone number in this letter on Google!)
* Anatomy of an e-mail chain letter (salon.com)
* Cole Schulte (The Vent #308; Charles G Hill takes apart a report chain letter from "Cole Schulte")
* Chain emails have netizens in a bind ("the soul of a religious guru is waiting to be re-born" - pass it on!)
* The MLM File - Chain Letters and MLM (Chain Letters - or - " What is the"illegal" part of MLM?")
* Gottapays Unlimited Paypal deposits paypal machines and stormpay (Paypal pyramid scheme)

Offline
I found surprisingly little on chain letters in print. John Scarne has a reasonable description, story, and analysis in a section called "The Chain-Letter Racket" in

* Scarne, John. Complete Guide to Gambling, Fully Revised, Expanded, Updated edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961, 1974. (pages 803-806)

I guess it is possible to make money legally from chain letters. The Truth About Chain Letters is a book by Dan Squier (often called Dan Squire on the net) which purports to tell you if you can actually "Make $60,000 in Two Weeks Mailing 600 Letters!" He'll tell you if they're really legal, show you some actual examples, and give you his own personal experience, all for $15. I finally got this "book" -- $12 at Barnes & Noble. It's 8 1/2 x 11" on newspaper-quality paper. The content is no better than you can find on this and other web pages on chain letters. The most amusing part was his experience with a chain letter - the reports variety. A brief quote about covers it:

By the end of the fifth week, I was trying to wealth on the net forget my mistake and was wondering how I could LEGITIMATELY earn back my money that I had wasted on this plan.

If you have an offline friend who believes he might get rich through chain letters, it might be worth sending him this if you can get a copy for maybe $5.

And The Facts About Multi-Level Marketing and Chain Letters by Robert Drake will help you "distinguish between a legitimate opportunity and a rip off" while telling you "the right envelope to use" and "letter openings that draw the reader in" for chain letters. Doesn't sound like he wants to discourage them, does he? I guess I should get a copy of that one too to review here. (Hmmm. Maybe I should charge for access to this page?)

Dick McLeester has been kind enough to provide a list of books he found in Books in Print.
My opinion of The Report Chain Letter

The author of the above referenced page has provided a link to my Chain Letter page "so you can make your own decision as to the legal, ethical and moral value of this program." Allow me then to make a few comments on the "program" as I read it.

The page discussed here was removed within a week of it's initial appearance on the web. I will leave my comments here, and have obtained the above (edited) copy of the original scheme for educational purposes.

* Boy, does it sound familiar. Hi, My name is John Doe. Only a short time ago, my life was a worse mess than yours, and now I'm living on easy street...
* The program is GUARANTEED! Your guarantee: If step #1 does not work for you, you can repeat it (ie, spam some more people) until it does!
* Check out their own analysis. They pick the numbers, worst case returns, etc. Yet by the end of the analysis of one case, 2 million people are involved. This alone is a significant fraction of all the people on the Internet. If this has been going on for some time, haven't most of the suckers (ahem, likely investors) been used up? How may more must be before you reap the advertised success they claim?
* How come it's $5 CASH? If I were running a business of this scale, I'd be happy to open a bank account to keep the loads of money in. Are they trying to hide it from the IRS? Or just obscure the trail of who has already been taken?

I'm not a lawyer and these are just my opinions, but when I read "you can sit back and relax, because YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE AT LEAST $50,000. Mathematically it is a proven guarantee." and see the mathematics they provide or imply, I see fraud. And when they're using the USPS to perpetuate that fraud, then it looks like mail fraud to me.

If anyone is not completely discouraged by this and goes ahead and orders these "reports," please do a public service and let me know if you get anything and if you do, mail me a copy.

In summary, if I was walking down the street and stepped in something that looked like this program, I'd wipe my shoe very carefully.

Coincidentally, Rolf's MMF Hall of Humiliation looks at a very similar scheme in more depth in the wealth on the net MMF Of The Week for March 9, 1997. That's no longer freely available, but it's a great site. Check it out!
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/chain-letters.html
This page last updated April 4, 2006.

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