Paypal Earner

[horatio]

I have sent an email of this title to your library address. This has got to be a scam has'nt it?
Mike Weller

[FW Admin]

Hello horatio and welcome to FraudWatchers.

Thank you for submitting the email and I can confirm that it is indeed not only spam, but may also be illegal (it certainly is illegal in the US under Federal Law). It is what is commonly known as a chain letter, and is a communication that, for example, encourages you to send money to a list of names that are included in the letter, then to add your name to the list and forward the letter to as many people as you can. This has also been highlighted at ReportAuctionFraud - you can see their warning at this link, together with an almost identical copy of the email you received:

http://www.reportauctionfraud.com/news_view.php4?id=65

Although it may sound mathematically plausible, there are various reasons why this would never work.

The following exerpt is taken from truthorfiction.com:
The practical side of chain letters is that they virtually never pay off. One reason is that in order to fully benefit from a chain letter that has been forwarded to you, everybody in the chain is going to have to send letters as well, which just doesn't happen.

The main reason is the sheer numbers involved.

Let's look at an example:

You receive a chain letter with 11 names on a list that asks you to send $10 to the person who is first on the list, then add your name to the bottom. This means that before you'll receive any money, the letter needs to go through 10 additional generations. Additionally, if you are going to receive the big bucks that were promised in the letter, everybody in those 10 generations will have to faithfully participate.

Here are the numbers:
Generation of Mailings Number of Participants
1 10
2 100
3 1,000
4 10,000
5 100,000
6 1,000,000
7 10,000,000
8 100,000,000
9 1,000,000,000
10 10,000,000,000

You'll get your money once 10 billion people are involved! That's nearly twice the population of the earth and depends on the previous one billion people making sure they all sent out their chain letters.

The bottom line is that most people who participate in chain letter schemes do not get their money back, do not make large amounts of money, and, in fact, are merely padding the wallets of the people who were first on the list...and who probably sent the chain letter in the first place.

As you can see, even with the figures suitably adjusted for any given scenario, the fact is that this "scheme" is never intended to pay anyone except the originator - the person who started sending these emails in the first place.

This can certainly be reported to the sender's host; in your case, it is a major UK ISP who do not give out free accounts, but are related to paid subcriptions for internet connectivity. It would certainly be in your interests to make such a complaint to their abuse department.

Again, many thanks for submitting this email and please do not hesitate to avail yourself of our information services.