Chain-mail via ye olde snailmail

[snoozn]

It's been years since I received a chainmail the old fashioned way, but today I received a version of this pyramid scam in the mail. It did mention a 15-year-old boy making $71,000 in five weeks, though it didn't detail the story. It was supposedly written by a retired attorney who'd figured out how to make the seeming pyramid scam legal (the letter even says "THIS IS NOT A PYRAMID SCAM!") The reasoning was the same as in the snopes page: you buying the "service" of being added to a mailing list. The letter brags that it is "as seen on Oprah and 20/20." And sure enough there is a list of six names with addresses at the end to which I am asked to send one dollar each while I wait for my $800,000 or so to begin pouring in.

I filled out a fraud form at the USPS website, though I don't expect much to come of it. Here's what I don't understand: even if I believed that it was legal and all that, why on earth would I send money to the folks on the list, rather than just starting my own letter with my own family and friends names and addresses and hope that other people are more stupid and gullible and won't do the same when they get my letter? I guess you just have to be a certain amount of stupid/gullible to fall for one of these in the first place and therefore blindly follow the instructions.

The names on my letter were from Peshastin, WA; Evansville, IN; Cleveland, TN; North Palm Beach, FL; and Euless, TX in case any snopesters want to volunteer to drive by and jeer at these people!

snoozn