Notes:
Does this headline look
familiar? Of course it does.
You most likely have just seen this story recently
featured on a major nightly news program. (USA)
His mother was cleaning
and putting laundry away when
she came across a large brown paper bag that was
suspiciously buried beneath some clothes and a
skateboard in the back of her 15-year-
old sons\' closet.
Nothing could have prepared her for the shock she got
when she opened the bag and found it was full of cash.
Five-dollar bills, twenties,
fifties and hundreds, all
neatly rubber-banded in labeled piles.
My first thought was that he had robbed a bank. says the
41 year old woman, There was
over $71,000 in that bag -
thats more than my husband earns in a year.
The woman immediately called her husband at the car-
dealership where he worked to
tell him what she had
discovered. He came home right away and they drove
together to the boys school and picked him up. Little did they suspect
that
where the
money came from was more shocking than actually finding it
in the closet.
As it turns out, the boy had been sending out, via email, a type of
`Report` to
E-mail addresses that he obtained off the internet.
Everyday after school for the past 2 months, he had been doing this right
on his
computer in his bedroom.
`I just got the E-mail one day and I figured what the heck. I put my
name on it like the instructions said and I started sending it out`, says
the clever
15 year old.
The E-mail letter listed 5 addresses and contained instructions to send
one $5 dollar bill to each person on the list, then delete the address at
the
bottom and move the others down and finally to add your name to the top
of the list.
The letter goes on to state that you would receive several
thousand
dollars in five-dollar bills within 2 weeks if you sent out the letter with
your name at the top of the 5-address list. \"I get junk E-mail all the
time,
and really did not think it was going to work\" the boy continues.
Within the first few days of sending out the E-mail, the Post Office
Box that his parents had gotten
him for his video game magazine
subscriptions began to fill up with not magazines but envelopes containing
$5 bills.
About a week later I rode (my bike)
down to the post office and my box
had one magazine and about 300 envelopes stuffed in it. There was also a
yellow slip that said I had to go up to the (post office)
counter, I
thought I
was in trouble or something (laughs)\". He goes on, I went up to the
counter and
they had a whole box of more mail for me. I had to ride
back
home and empty out my backpack because I could not carry it all.
Over the next few weeks, the boy continued sending out the E-mail. The
money just
kept coming in and I just kept sorting it and stashing it in
the closet, barely had time for my homework He had also been riding his
bike to several of the banks in his
area and exchanging the $5 dollar bills
twenties,
fifties and hundreds.
`I didn\'t want the banks to get suspicious so I kept riding to
different
banks with like 5 thousand in my backpack at a time. I would
usually
tell the lady at the bank counter that my dad had sent me in to
exchange the money and he was
outside waiting for me. One time the lady
gave me
a really strange look and told me that she would not be able to do it
for me, and my dad would have to come in and
do it, but I just rode to the
next
bank down the street (laughs).`
Surprisingly, the boy did not have any reason to be afraid. The
reporting news team
examined and investigated the so-called `chain-letter`
the
boy was sending out and found that it was not a chain-letter at all. In
fact, it was completely legal
according to US Postal and Lottery Laws,
Title
18, Section 1302 and 1341, or Title 18, Section 3005 in the US code, also
in the code of federal regulations, Volume
16, Sections 255 and 436,
which state a product or service must be exchanged for money received.
Every five-dollar bill that he received contained a little note that
read,
`Please send me report number XYZ`. This simple note made the letter
legal because he was exchanging a service (A Report on how-to) for a
five-dollar fee.
Here is the letter that the 15 year old was sending out by Email, you
can do the exact same thing he was doing, simply by following the
instructions in
this letter.
SNIPPED - rest of email contains instructions and where to send the email to.
This email is, in reality, a chain
email cash gifting scheme which is essentially a form of ponzi scheme.
Despite what the email says, performing this
operation is very much illegal, according to both the FTC and Postal service. Because of the inherent pyramid structure this scheme would take, most people will fail to make
any money. The scheme also uses the charade of products (reports) to make the scheme appear legal. This is a popular defensive tactic illegal schemes use to claim that they
are operating within the law. However most countries laws (including UK and US) state that the products must create the profit and not the opportunity to get rich from fees or
gifts from other members. This is scheme is illegal and you cna be prosecuted for joining.
Additionally the assertion that this story was featured on the news
is false.
|
