Make Money Fast
Encyclopedia
"MAKE.MONEY.FAST" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter
Chain letter
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...

 which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, by e-mail spam
E-mail spam
Email 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...

 or Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 newsgroups. In anti-spammer slang, the name is often abbreviated "MMF".

History

The original "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" letter was written around 1988 by a person who used the name Dave Rhodes. Biographical details are not certain, and it is not clear that this is even the person's actual name.

It is often said, such as in the FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...

 for the net.legends Usenet group, that Rhodes was a student at Columbia Union College
Columbia Union College
Washington Adventist University is a Seventh-day Adventist liberal arts university operating in Takoma Park, Maryland, United States. Since 2008, when its new president Weymouth Spence announced a restructuring, the school has seen its enrollment increase by 50%.- Academics :WAU is accredited by...

, a Seventh Day Adventist college in Maryland, who wrote the letter and uploaded it as a text file to a nearby BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...

 around 1987. It is also often said that Rhodes was convicted of some fraud-related crime and that as part of his sentence he had to create an anti-spam website, but no evidence of this has been found.

The scam reached the Internet, where it was forwarded over e-mail and Usenet, although it was not until spamming
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...

 became a major problem in 1994 that "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" exploded. It became one of the most persistent spams in existence and multiple variations have come into existence, often by spammers who change the subject of their email to "This really works!" or "You are a winner!"

Mechanics and legality

The letter encouraged readers of the email to forward one dollar in cash to a list of people provided in the text, and to add their own name and address to the bottom of the list after deleting the name and address at the top. Using the theory behind 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, the resulting chain of money flowing back and forth would supposedly deliver a reward of thousands of dollars to the ones participating in the chain, as copies of their chain spread and more and more people sent one dollar to their address.

The text of the letter originally claimed to be "perfectly legal", citing Title 18, U.S. Code, Sections 1302 (which deals with postal lotteries) and 1341 (which deals with mail fraud). The U.S. Postal Inspection Service cites 18 USC 1302 when it asserts the illegality of chain letters, including MMF:
[Chain letters are] illegal if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants. Chain letters are a form of gambling, and sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute.


It also asserts that "[r]egardless of what technology is used to advance the scheme, if the mail is used at any step along the way, it is still illegal." The U.S. Postal Inspection Service asserts the mathematical impossibility that all participants will be winners, as well as the possibilities that participants may fail to send money to the first person listed, and the perpetrator may have been listed multiple times under different addresses and names, thus ensuring that all the money goes to the same person.

As of this writing, few chain letters use the U.S. mails to transmit the money. A common chain letter suggests that the participant transfer $6 using the Paypal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....

 electronic funds transfer service to send $1 to each of 6 people. However, the mathematical impossibilities of the claims noted in the U.S. Postal Inspection Service blurb survives the change in medium and 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 are still illegal in most places around the world, possibly as investment frauds or consumer frauds or illegal lotteries.

MMF parodies

The chain letters follow a rigidly predefined format or template with minor variations (such as claiming to be from a retired lawyer or claiming to be selling "reports" in order to attempt to make the scheme appear lawful). They quickly became repetitive, causing them to be bait for widespread satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 or parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

. One widespread parody begins with the line "Hi, I'm Dave Rhodes, and I'm in jail".

See also

  • List of spammers
  • 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...

  • There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK