Chain letter
Encyclopedia
A typical chain letter consists of a message
that attempts to the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients as possible. Common methods used in chain letters include emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich-quickly
pyramid scheme
s, and the exploitation of superstition
to threaten the recipient with bad luck or even physical violence or death if he or she "breaks the chain" and refuses to adhere to the conditions set out in the letter. Chain letters started as actual letters that one received in the mail. Today, chain letters are generally no longer actual letters. They are sent through email messages, postings on social network sites
, and text messages.
There are two main types of chain letters:
In the United States, chain letters that request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants (such as the infamous Make Money Fast
scheme) are considered a form of gambling and therefore illegal. Other types of chain letters are viewed as a general nuisance in that frequently multiplying letters clog up the postal system and do not function as correspondence mail, but rather, a game. Some colleges and military bases have passed regulations stating that in the private mail of college students and military personnel, respectively, chain letters are not authorized and will be thrown out. However, it is often difficult to distinguish chain letters from genuine correspondence.
Print
The oldest known channel for chain letters is written, or printed, on letters on paper. These might be exchanged hand-to-hand or distributed through the mail. One notorious early example was the "Prosperity Club" or "Send-a-Dime" letter. This letter started in Denver, Colorado
in 1935, based on an earlier luck letter. It soon swamped the Denver post office with hundreds of thousands of letters before spilling into St. Louis
and other cities.
In Africa, most chain letters take religious perspectives especially relating to Christianity and Islam. Often these letters originate from Photocopy centers, claiming to have originated from the Pope, with the intent of persuading people to make copies of such letters. The content usually gives one or two examples of people, sometimes public figures who obeyed and were rewarded and others who disobeyed and suffered heavily, which may even include cases of deaths and of someone becoming a millionaire overnight. These types of letters will flourish for some days and will die out naturally, partly based on the economic realities of the people, and maybe many would also reason that if that was truly the original letter, then it cannot contain cases of people who had broken or continued the chain.
Email
Some email messages may seem fairly harmless, for example, a grammar school student wishing to see how many people can receive his email for a science project, but can grow exponentially and be hard to stop. Messages sometimes include phony promises from companies or wealthy individuals (such as Bill Gates
) promising a monetary reward to everyone who receives the message. They may also be politically motivated, such as "Save the Scouts, forward this to as many friends as possible" or a concept that a popular TV or radio show may be forced off the air. Some, like the "Hawaiian Good Luck Totem" which has spread in thousands of forms, threaten users with bad luck
if not forwarded.
There are many forms of chain email that threaten death or the taking of one's soul by telling tales of other's deaths, such as the Katu Lata Kulu chain email, stating that if it is not forwarded, the receivers of the message will be killed by the spirit
. Another involved an email involving a homicidal Mickey Mouse
, who will intrude the recipient's domain to kill him or her unless sent to the number of recipients (25). Any lower they will suffer death, injury, paranoia
, and bad luck.
Platforms like Facebook
, YouTube
can host chain letters playing with users' emotions. They may also be in the form of a warning, such as stories of escaped convicts et cetera which urge the reader to pass the message on. One chain letter distributed on MSN Hotmail
began, "Hey it's Tara and John the directors of MSN"... and tells you that your account will be deleted if you don't send that message to everyone.
Another common form of email chain letter is the virus hoax
.
).
(in the form of myspace bulletins) and YouTube
(in the form of video comments) as well as on Facebook
through messages or applications. For instance, the chain post/email of "Carmen Winstead", a girl who was pushed down a sewage drain in a firedrill, states that, "if you do not repost/send this to 10 people, Carmen will find you and kill you." Chain letters are often coupled with intimidating hoax
es or the promise of providing the sender with "secret" information once they've forwarded the message.
asking recipients to send money and forward the email. They may be harmful, and contain trojans
.
In the United States it is illegal to mail chain letters that involve pyramid scheme
s or other such financial inducements under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute, though chain letters that ask for items of minor value such as business cards or recipes are not covered by this law. If pyramid scheme chain letters are sent through email, this constitutes wire fraud
.
Message
A message in its most general meaning is an object of communication. It is a vessel which provides information. Yet, it can also be this information. Therefore, its meaning is dependent upon the context in which it is used; the term may apply to both the information and its form...
that attempts to the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients as possible. Common methods used in chain letters include emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich-quickly
Make Money Fast
"MAKE.MONEY.FAST" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups...
pyramid scheme
Pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public...
s, and the exploitation of superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
to threaten the recipient with bad luck or even physical violence or death if he or she "breaks the chain" and refuses to adhere to the conditions set out in the letter. Chain letters started as actual letters that one received in the mail. Today, chain letters are generally no longer actual letters. They are sent through email messages, postings on social network sites
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
, and text messages.
There are two main types of chain letters:
- Hoaxes - Hoaxes attempt to trick or defraud users. A hoax could be malicious, instructing users to delete a file necessary to the operating system by claiming it is a virus. It could also be a scam that convinces users to send money or personal information. Phishing attacks could fall into this.
- Urban legends - Urban legends are designed to be redistributed and usually warn users of a threat or claim to be notifying them of important or urgent information. Another common form are the emails that promise users monetary rewards for forwarding the message or suggest that they are signing something that will be submitted to a particular group. Urban legends usually have no negative effect aside from wasted bandwidth and time.
In the United States, chain letters that request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants (such as the infamous Make Money Fast
Make Money Fast
"MAKE.MONEY.FAST" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups...
scheme) are considered a form of gambling and therefore illegal. Other types of chain letters are viewed as a general nuisance in that frequently multiplying letters clog up the postal system and do not function as correspondence mail, but rather, a game. Some colleges and military bases have passed regulations stating that in the private mail of college students and military personnel, respectively, chain letters are not authorized and will be thrown out. However, it is often difficult to distinguish chain letters from genuine correspondence.
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
in 1935, based on an earlier luck letter. It soon swamped the Denver post office with hundreds of thousands of letters before spilling into St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and other cities.
In Africa, most chain letters take religious perspectives especially relating to Christianity and Islam. Often these letters originate from Photocopy centers, claiming to have originated from the Pope, with the intent of persuading people to make copies of such letters. The content usually gives one or two examples of people, sometimes public figures who obeyed and were rewarded and others who disobeyed and suffered heavily, which may even include cases of deaths and of someone becoming a millionaire overnight. These types of letters will flourish for some days and will die out naturally, partly based on the economic realities of the people, and maybe many would also reason that if that was truly the original letter, then it cannot contain cases of people who had broken or continued the chain.
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
) promising a monetary reward to everyone who receives the message. They may also be politically motivated, such as "Save the Scouts, forward this to as many friends as possible" or a concept that a popular TV or radio show may be forced off the air. Some, like the "Hawaiian Good Luck Totem" which has spread in thousands of forms, threaten users with bad luck
Bad Luck
Bad Luck may refer to:* Harmful or negative luck* Bad Luck , a 1960 film directed by Andrzej Munk* "Bad Luck" * "Bad Luck" * Bad Luck, an album by Trophy Scars...
if not forwarded.
There are many forms of chain email that threaten death or the taking of one's soul by telling tales of other's deaths, such as the Katu Lata Kulu chain email, stating that if it is not forwarded, the receivers of the message will be killed by the spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
. Another involved an email involving a homicidal Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
, who will intrude the recipient's domain to kill him or her unless sent to the number of recipients (25). Any lower they will suffer death, injury, paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
, and bad luck.
Platforms like Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
can host chain letters playing with users' emotions. They may also be in the form of a warning, such as stories of escaped convicts et cetera which urge the reader to pass the message on. One chain letter distributed on MSN Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
began, "Hey it's Tara and John the directors of MSN"... and tells you that your account will be deleted if you don't send that message to everyone.
Another common form of email chain letter is the virus hoax
Virus hoax
A computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipient of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipient to forward it to everyone they know.-Identification:...
.
Chain spiders
A chain spider is a type of electronic chain letter whereby recipients are encouraged to sign a petition in favor of a particular cause with the list of names contained within the message. This is called a chain spider because each time it is forwarded to a group of people each recipient receives an independent clone of the message such that numerous copies will exist with signatures being added to only one copy. For example if Fred started a chain spider and sent it initially to Katie and Andrew, who in turn signed it, Katie and Andrew would then have different lists to send on with Andrew's friends never being added to Katie's list and vice versa. Chain spiders propagate in an exponential fashion, and thus chains with long recipient lists are likely to have either spread to a lot of people, or contain fabricated information (see Pyramid schemePyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public...
).
Web communities
Chain letters have become wide spread on MyspaceMyspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
(in the form of myspace bulletins) and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
(in the form of video comments) as well as on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
through messages or applications. For instance, the chain post/email of "Carmen Winstead", a girl who was pushed down a sewage drain in a firedrill, states that, "if you do not repost/send this to 10 people, Carmen will find you and kill you." Chain letters are often coupled with intimidating hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
es or the promise of providing the sender with "secret" information once they've forwarded the message.
Legality
Chain letters may also qualify under other types of illegal activities, as in the case of a pyramid schemePyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public...
asking recipients to send money and forward the email. They may be harmful, and contain trojans
Trojan horse (computing)
A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is software that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install, but steals information or harms the system. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology.-Malware:A destructive program that masquerades as a benign...
.
In the United States it is illegal to mail chain letters that involve pyramid scheme
Pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public...
s or other such financial inducements under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute, though chain letters that ask for items of minor value such as business cards or recipes are not covered by this law. If pyramid scheme chain letters are sent through email, this constitutes wire fraud
Wire fraud
Mail and wire fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Together, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346 reach any fraudulent scheme or artifice to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services with a nexus to mail or wire communication....
.
See also
- Do Good Gauge - Pay the Thought Forward
- Gratis InternetGratis Internetright|thumb|Gratis Internet LogoGratis Internet is a Washington, D.C.-based referral marketing company that rewards customers with products of high-demand such as the iPod and PlayStation 3. In 2004 it became a member of the Inc. 500; while in 2005 Gratis broke into the top twenty at eighteen...
- Mail fraud
- Make money fastMake Money Fast"MAKE.MONEY.FAST" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups...
- Mon cher Mustapha letterMon cher Mustapha letterThe Mon cher Mustapha letter was an anonymous chain letter distributed in Dreux, France around 1981–82 by supporters of the far-right political party National Front. It was supposedly written by an Algerian living in France to a friend or brother living in Algeria...
– a chain letter used as a form of black propagandaBlack propagandaBlack propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy... - Multi-level marketingMulti-level marketingMulti-level marketing is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation...
- SpamE-mail spamEmail spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
- Virus hoaxVirus hoaxA computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipient of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipient to forward it to everyone they know.-Identification:...
- Wire fraudWire fraudMail and wire fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Together, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346 reach any fraudulent scheme or artifice to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services with a nexus to mail or wire communication....
Similar distribution
- FaxloreFaxloreFaxlore is a sort of folklore: humorous texts, folk poetry, folk art, and urban legends that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by fax machine...
– distribution of chain-letters or similar material by fax machine
External links
- Chain Letter Evolution, Daniel W. VanArsdale. A historical analysis, including an archive of actual letters.
- What's wrong with chain letters?
- A discussion of the history and various types of chain letters (from Snopes.com)
- Break the chain
- An example of a "Send-a-dime" letter