A chain letter is a
message
A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus.
A ...
that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a
tree graph
In graph theory, a tree is an undirected graph in which any two Vertex (graph theory), vertices are connected by ''exactly one'' Path (graph theory), path, or equivalently a Connected graph, connected Cycle (graph theory), acyclic undirected grap ...
) that cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Common methods used in chain letters include
emotionally manipulative stories,
get-rich-quick
A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to obtain high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 20th century.
Most schemes create an impression that partic ...
pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly im ...
s, and the exploitation of
superstition
A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs and ...
to threaten the recipient. Originally, chain letters were
letters
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
sent by mail; today, chain letters are often sent electronically via
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
social network sites, and
text messages
Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/ laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...
.
Types
There are two main types of chain letter:
# 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 spread the letter to other people for a specific reason, or send money or personal information.
Phishing
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...
attacks could fall into this.
# Urban legends:
Urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
s 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 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 (stylised as MAKE.MONEY.FAST) is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter created in 1988 which became so infamous that the term is often used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-m ...
scheme) are illegal.
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.
Channels
Print
![Chain Letter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Chain_letter.jpg)
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
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
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 () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and other cities.
Chain letters take religious perspectives to the extremes, especially when relating to Christianity. Often these letters originate from
photocopy
A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers u ...
centers, claiming to have originated from the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
, 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 of 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 recipients, and possibly because they may 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 sent as chain letters may seem fairly harmless; for example, a grammar school student wishing to see how many people can receive his/her email for a science project, but they can grow exponentially and be hard to stop. Infamously, the salacious
Claire Swire email
The Claire Swire email of 2000 was a very personal email from Claire Swire to Bradley Chait, who worked at Norton Rose, a law firm in London, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with ...
spread in a chain-like fashion when its recipient sought to learn Swire's identity.
Messages sometimes include phony promises from companies or wealthy individuals (such as
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
) 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 warning 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 others' 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 a spirit.
Platforms like
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
can host chain letters playing with users' emotions. They may also be in the form of warnings, such as stories of escaped convicts, which urge the reader to pass the message on. One chain letter distributed on MSN
Hotmail
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
began, "Hey it's Tara and John the directors of MSN"... and subsequently claimed readers' accounts would be deleted if they did not pass on the message.
Another common form of email chain letter is the
virus hoax
A computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipients of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipients to forward it to everyone they know, but it can also be in the form of a pop-up wind ...
and a form of
cyberbullying
Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital ...
.
Web communities
Chain letters within social media platforms became widespread on
Myspace (in the form of Myspace bulletins) and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
(in the form of video comments) as well as on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
through messages or applications. For instance, the chain post/email of
Carmen Winstead
Social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet include Internet memes, such as popular themes, catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly and become more wides ...
,
supposedly about a girl from
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
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
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
es or the promise of providing the sender with "secret" information once they have forwarded the message.
Legality
A chain letter may qualify as a fraudulent activity, as in the case of a
pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly im ...
, which asks recipients to funnel money up the chain while requesting the letter be distributed to multiple new recipients.
The legality of chain letters comes into question when they attempt to funnel monetary value to a single recipient. When a chain letter suggests a game of chance or a lottery with an opportunity for financial gain, it is considered fraudulent under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the
Postal Lottery Statute
Postal may refer to:
Places
* The Italian name for Burgstall, South Tyrol in northern Italy
* Postal, Missouri
* Postal Square
* Postal Museum (Liechtenstein), a postal museum in Vaduz, Liechtenstein
People
* Fred Postal, former co-owner o ...
. 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, it may constitute
wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to fraud, defraud another, and are Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the ...
. An email chain letter may contain
trojans
Trojan or Trojans may refer to:
* Of or from the ancient city of Troy
* Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 1890 ...
or another type of
computer virus
A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
that is covered under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
8 U.S.C. Section 1030 This law makes it illegal to distribute computer codes or place them in the stream of commerce if their intent is to cause damage or economic loss.
See also
*
Postcrossing
Postcrossing is an online project that allows its members to send and receive postcards from all over the world. The project's tag line is "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!" Its members, a ...
*
Copypasta
A copypasta is a block of text that is copied and pasted across the Internet by individuals through online forums and social networking websites. Copypastas are said to be similar to spam as they are often used to annoy other users and disrupt on ...
*
Gratis Internet
Gratis Internet Logo
Gratis 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 Grati ...
*
Jessica Mydek hoax letter
*
Mail and wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...
*
Make money fast
Make Money Fast (stylised as MAKE.MONEY.FAST) is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter created in 1988 which became so infamous that the term is often used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-m ...
*
Multi-level marketing
Multi-level marketing (MLM), also called network marketing or pyramid selling, is a controversial marketing strategy for the sale of products or services in which the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling th ...
*
Spam
Spam may refer to:
* Spam (food), a canned pork meat product
* Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages
** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages
** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...
*
Virus hoax
A computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipients of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipients to forward it to everyone they know, but it can also be in the form of a pop-up wind ...
Similar distribution
*
Faxlore
Faxlore 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. Xeroxlore or photocopylore is similar material circulated by photocopying; compare samizdat i ...
– distribution of chain-letters or similar material by fax machine
References
Bibliography
*
* Dean, Athena. ''All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Breaking Free from the Sweet Deceit of MLM'', 1998, Winepress Publishing,
*
* Squier, Dan. ''The Truth About Chain Letters'', 1990, Premier Publishers,
* Tartaglia, Gary.
Shattered Dreams: How to Avoid Costly Mistakes in Multi-level Marketing', 1985, Targeted Communications,
* Walsh, James.
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man: How Ponzi Schemes & Pyramid Frauds Work', 1998 Merritt Publishing,
External links
A discussion of the history and various types of chain letters(from
Snopes.com)
An example of a "Send-a-dime" letterBreak the chain*
Daniel W. VanArsdale. A historical analysis, including an archive of actual letters.
Pay the Thought Forward
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chain Letter
Curses
Email
Letters (message)
Luck