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From: shp@crystal.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Chain Letters... Why are they Illegal?
Message-ID: <455@crystal.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-May-85 14:19:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: crystal.455
Posted: Fri May  3 14:19:47 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 5-May-85 23:51:04 EDT
References: <880@hou2h.UUCP>
Organization: The Life Is A Rock Foundation
Lines: 33

> > 
> > Chain letters are against the law in the United States.  If you get such
> > a thing with a US postmark, contact the postmaster for the central office
> > indicated by the postmark.  They actively prosecute people who send such
> > things.
> > 
> 	Would someone please explain why chain letters are illegal.
>   I don't see why they are any more of a nuisance than junk mail.
>   There must be something I'm missing here.
> -- 
>   \\\
>    \\\\                                  Art Stadlin
>     \\\\\\________!{akgua,ihnp4,houxm}!hou2h!stadlin

	I'm not sure anymore if ALL chain letters are illegal, or just the
    ones that ask for money.  A lot used to; they'd say something like:
	"Mail $1 to the person at the top of the list, then remove the
    name from the list and add yourself to the bottom."  Most of these
    had a fan-out of about 6, and a total list of about 6.  6^6 is a little
    under $50K.  Not bad for three weeks.  Anyway, I think they were made
    illegal because of the threats involved ("or bad luck will surely
    befall you.").  Probably the same reason that cons are illegal; my
    personal opinion is that if you're dumb enough to buy swampland in
    New Mexico, or famous monuments in New York, you probably deserve what
    you get (screwed) (:-), but still, lots of innocent people fall for it.

	=shp

    P. S.  The last chainletter I got was mailed to me via e-mail, locally.
    OOOhhh, such fun.  Fan-out of 20, and several friends got them, too. 
    Yeah, you got it, we each mailed the damn thing twenty times to the
    turkey who sent it to us.  The system nearly choked on ~100 sendmails
    running at once, but it got over it.  Oh, well.