Date: 18 Nov 96 23:20:24 GMT From: rscott@fcc.com (R. Scott Perry) Newsgroups: ........ Subject: Re: TRUST ME! THIS POST CAN EARN MONEY FOR YOU!!!! >> TRUST ME! THIS POST CAN EARN MONEY FOR YOU!!!! >Is'nt it a way to stop this abuse? Yes. Most of the people that post this truly believe that [1] It is legal, and [2] It will work. Sending E-mail to the user or postmaster will not help, as other naive people will continue the chain. However, by posting this following message, people will learn *before* they continue the chain: Not only are chain letters illegal in the U.S. (2 year jail term for first offence, see below), they CAN NOT WORK. There would have to be over 1,000,000,000,000 people participating for them to work. Here's PROOF: --- The chain letters claim that you will make at least $10,000 (often they claim $20,000 or $50,000), by people sending you $1 bills. If the person who originally wrote the chain letter made $10,000 off of it, then there are at least 10,000 people who have joined so far. That's obvious; if someone made $10,000 from people sending him $1, then 10,000 people have joined so far. In order for each of those 10,000 people to make $10,000, there would need to be 100,000,000 people joining (10,000 people already in the program, each causing another 10,000 to join; 10,000 times 10,000 is 100,000,000). That, too, is quite obvious. So, if you saw this chain letter and joined it, according to the way the chain letter claims it works, there would be 100,000,000 other people joining. For all of you to make your $10,000, you would each need to cause another 10,000 people to sign up. How many are we at now? It's simple: 100,000,000 people times 10,000 new people each. That's 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) people joining. That's about 200 times as many people as there are on this planet. Now do you understand why chain letters won't work? --- Chain letters are illegal if the chain letter or money is transferred via U.S. Mail, and can get you a $1,000 fine and a 2 YEAR jail sentence for your first offense. The second offence can get you in jail for 5 years. Even if transmitted via the Internet, they violate Title 18 USC Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute. For verification, you can currently go to http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/ chainlet.htm to see that it is illegal, and go to http://www.usps.gov/ websites/depart/inspect/usc18/lottery.htm for the text of the law). --- Feel free to copy this in response to any chain letters you see, hopefully as enough people see this, the chain letters will stop. -Scott RSP