How to Identify and Report Illegal Chain Letters

Did you see the one about the 10-year-old who made $50,000 by sending one letter to six names and then people from all over the world sent him $1 each to be on his "mailing list?" It seems logical when you read it. They show you the pyramid and you can just start to see the money coming in. One even claims that Oprah had endorsed it. The letters are good. They are enticing. Who doesn't want to get fifty thousand $1 bills in the mail by just sending out six letters? Many households receive these types of solicitations every day. These are called chain letters.

Most of these chain letters promise you will receive huge financial rewards if you will just follow the instructions exactly. Typically, a chain letter contains a list of names and addresses requesting that you send something, usually a small sum of money ($1 to $5 typically), to the next person on the list, removing that person's name from the list and adding your name to the bottom of the list. Then, it asks you to mail or email the letter to a specified number of others and asks you not to break "the chain." The idea is that when your name gets to the top of the list, there will be so many people involved that you will be getting a mailbox full of $1 bills from thousands of people all over the world. Email versions often promise good luck, or special blessings, if you will just email the letter to dozens of others, though some will try to get you to send money via PayPal to the accounts of the people ahead of you on the list.

Most of the time, the names of the people ahead of you are bogus. There is one person, or one group of connected individuals, who are getting all of the dollars that are sent. It's a scam that's been going on ever since the first mail was delivered, and it still goes on today. Unscrupulous scammers often buy lists of people who are in difficult financial situations, like recently widowed, just filed bankruptcy, lost a job, or had recently missed credit card payments to mail their letters to, hoping to prey on the most vulnerable. Seniors are often targeted.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the government agency charged with helping consumers identify, avoid, and stop fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices. The FTC has issued regular Consumer Alerts over the years with the following reminders about chain letters, especially ones that involve money:

1) Chain letters which involve valuable items or money and promise big returns are illegal. If you begin one or send one on, you could be breaking the law.

2) No matter what the chain letter claims, you will not become rich. You will receive little or no money back, probably not enough to cover your postage.

3) Some chain letters try to claim that they are legal and endorsed by the government. These claims are false. This is not a legitimate way to build a mailing list, and no government agency would be involved in such a scenario. There is no part of the "economic stimulus plan" that allows someone to send $1 to someone and get thousands of dollars in return.

The FTC's jurisdiction is not just limited to chain letters, but it also investigates bogus sweepstakes and misleading advertising, as well as managing the national do-not-call registry.

If you or a loved one has received a chain letter, it needs to be reported. Keep the original envelope and letter and then contact the following government agencies:

Federal Trade Commission - FTC Consumer Response Center (toll-free): 1.877.FTC.HELP (1.877.382.4357), visit the website at www.ftc.gov, or write: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Response Center, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580. Internet, telemarketing, and other fraud-related complaints are entered into Consumer Sentinel,an online, secure database available to hundreds of civil and criminal enforcement agencies across the world.

U.S. Postal Inspection Service: 1.888.877.7644 (toll-free) or on the web at www.framed.usps.com/postalinspectors/chainlet.htm is where you would report any chain letters which come through the mail.

Reporting these scams is not difficult. Please do your part to rid the postal and email systems of these bogus solicitations.