At least eight years, I've learned my lesson early. Seduced by the prospect of receiving postal minded children around the world, I worked immediately on the 10 responses as indicated in my first chain letter. Spotting a rare opportunity to encourage my writing skills, even my mother was enthusiastic. Thus we were both surprised and disappointed when the mailbox is still painfully empty during the following weeks. Of course, my father, a mathematician by profession, soon filled us in practice – chain letters do not work. The numbers do not add, can not and never (more on that later). While the figures were above my head, the message hit home and I've never missed a chain letter since.
Assuming my views on chain letters to be the norm, I was surprised when several friends, (sensible, intelligent, adult), recently began sending me chain letters. Full of sob stories of heartbroken mothers who require wheelchairs for their children die, the temptation to email you a dollar bill proved compelling. In contrast, letters were returned to the sender with a note – 'I'm sorry but I just do not do chain letters. "I noticed the funny looks that they thought I had gone a bit strange, but from my point of view, I could not understand why it changed people do not share my reservations.
Chain letters have evolved a little since my first encounter in the 1960s, although I have said that have been around since the Middle Ages until the harvest in ancient Egyptian culture. Far from a game innocent children, modern chain letters are carefully crafted to take advantage of our weaknesses. Get rich schemes promise of infinite wealth of investment minimum, while the letters asking the game to our fault. Some even threaten bad luck or death to the switch in the chain. With the advent of the Internet, email e-mail can spread like wildfire chain, a perfect way for the unscrupulous to create buzz malicious or subversive propaganda – And thought that post was not a bad deal!
And what about those numbers? Chain letters are a mathematical impossibility, due to the large number of people needed to sustain the process. Donald Watrous illustrates effectively through the analysis of the Dave infamous Letter Rhodes chain. In it, you are advised to submit their letter of 10 bulletin boards and basically not receive any money until you get to position 5 in the listings. Watrous does the calculation for us and shows how more than 11 million bulletin boards that have to participate before they have even a chance to get money cash. If that's not bad enough, these figures assume that all names and addresses are real. In fact, the first batch of names and addresses at any chain letter, probably belong to the original author – the only person who ever will benefit from the scheme! So that's it. A chain letter is basically an invitation to send money to a complete stranger with no prospect of anything in return. Do you really want to give your money like that?
If the thought of facing another pocket is not enough to get out of chain mail for good, there are other reasons to stay away. To begin, it is illegal if it comes to money, valuables or promises monetary reward. Secondly, do you really want to annoy your friends and colleagues for this crap happens to them? What about spam? In response to any type of mail chain mail is guaranteed to clog your inbox with a bunch of junk mail again.
Finally, if you're one of those nervous types, not can bear the thought of breaking the chain for fear of bad luck or, worse, help is at hand. The popular type csicop.org Chain Letters Anonymous [http://www.csicop.org/chain] are bravely offering to step in string of his hands. We invite you to forward the spam to your website where you are likely to disappear in big hole black in cyberspace while leaving you free to mess with fickle finger of fate.
Louise Dop is a successful freelance writer and technical author. Her ebook, The Writer’s Secret Weapon, brings together a collection of the best free online resources for writers and gives an insight into the writing life. With over 50 direct links to resources, this straightforward guide will show you the real-life tips and tricks that – armed with an Internet connection and basic computer literacy – you can try for yourself right away.
