The Luney Bin: H. Wade Minter

Updated June 9, 2005

It was like opening a time capsule. I got a quaint little piece of history in the mail today. A chain letter! Yes, before your email inbox was clogged with get-rich-quick schemes, crooks used to have to pay for a stamp to send their crap to you, and you had to go find a photocopier and send your stuff to the people on the list.

So in this instance, “Dick Hollman” tells us a sad story.

My name is Dick Hollman. In September 1999, my car was reposessed. Bill collectors were hounding me like you wouldn’t believe. I was laid off and unemployment insurance ran out. In October, I received a letter telling me how I could earn $800,000 anytime I wanted to. Of course I was skeptical, but because I was so desparate and had nothing to lose, I gave it a try. In January of 2000,my family and I went on a ten-day cruise! In February, I bought a new Cadillac with cash! Today, I am currently building a second home in Virginia and will never work again.

This program works perfectly. I have never failed to make $800,000 on each mailing. It does not require you to sell anything or come in personal contact with anyone. Best of all, the only time yo0u ever leave home is to mail the letters and you can do that on the way to the grocery store, I’m sure you could use $800,000 in the next 20 to ninety days.

Please study this letter very carefully: THIS IS NOT A CHAIN LETTER! This is a perfectly legal money making opportunity. Follow the instructions EXACTLY!

Wow! That sounds great! And he says it’s perfectly legal! How can I refuse?

So the scam is that I need to send $1.00 to six people listed on the letter to “request that you be added to their mailing list (it is this step that makes the system legal)”. Then, I’m supposed to drop off name #1 and add myself to the bottom of the list. Dick helpfully says “an easy way to do this is to retype or print the six names with yours as the 6th on a separate piece of paper and tape over where the names are shown.” Sure enough, it looks like that’s what the person who sent this did.

In case you’re curious, the fine folks who are hoping to build a second home in Virginia are:

1) Terence Lolano from Nampa, ID.
2) Dan Bartlett from Redford, MI
3) Jessie Watkin from Lula, GA
4) Grian Ganky from Cave City, AR
5) Craig Hicks from Clayton, NC (Tarheels represent, yo)
6) Mary Kepley from Franklin, KY (I guess this is the person who sent me this fine business opportunity)

Then, you’re supposed to make 200 copies of your letter, and purchase a mailing list from some company. They helpfully suggest a company out of Phoenix that they say does not “over use” their lists. They also “promise that each name on the peel and stick labels/list has recently requested moneymaking information within the last 45 days.” Boy, I know that fits me to a tee! I request moneymaking information like every day!

In case anyone wants to subscribe the company to some child porn magazines or something, they can be reached at:

Quality Services
18402 N 19th Ave.
PMB 122
Phoenix, AZ 95023

You can tell they’re legit because they have a “Personal Mailbox” based out of a Mailboxes Etc. or something.

Step 4 is helpful. “While waiting for your mailing lists to arrive, place the letters in the evenlopes and stamp them.” Also, mentally picture the triple-wide you’ll buy with all the money.

When the list arrives, just place the labels on your mail, sit back, and wait for OVER $800,000 IN CASH to come flowing in. Brilliant! Just be sure, as the chain letter says, to “when your money begins to come in, give 10% to your favorite charity or a needy friend with a joyful spirit and share the good fortune.” Your friend’s spirit is certain to be even more joyful when they find out that you’re brain-damaged enough to participate in a pyramid scam. Feel the joy!

It goes on for a few pages of this hilarity. I guess that in this new-fangled age of the internets and high technology, that there are still people in Cave City, Arkansas sitting by the mailbox, waiting for their $800,000. At least this way, I know it cost (according to the letter) $155.00 for them to follow the rules, and they’ll be lucky to get $5.00 back.

Update 6/9/2005

Wow. I never thought a quick post mocking chain letters would turn out to be the most popular thing on the site. But thanks to the magic of Google, I’m apparently the top spot for searches for “Dick Hollman” and a couple of other things related to this chain letter. It’s been interesting watching the comments go back and forth, but I think it’s time to close the comments on this entry.

People seem to be in two camps – the “It’s a scam” camp, and the “It could work if you believe” camp. While I’m sure the second group are very nice people, and mean well, they’re, well, wrong. And I don’t say that just to be mean – here’s why:

• The chain letter scam is, in fact, illegal. Just because the letter cites postal codes and tries to get around the details by saying you’re buying a “service” instead of sending “chain letters,” the fact is that if you took this down to your post office and showed it to the people, they’d say “Yup, that’s a chain letter.” Will you get prosecuted for it? Probably not. It’s still a scam, and still illegal.
• Variants in details. “Dick Hollman” changes his story with every letter someone gets. That alone should set off warning bells that you’re dealing with a work of fiction, not a real person. If you can’t trust the story to get the facts right, why would you trust anyone taking part in it?
• Remember what your momma told you? “If something’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Yet we’re expected to believe that in order to pull in nearly a million dollars in a few months, all you have to do is Xerox some letters and put them in the mail, and wait for the money to roll in. A nice story, one that preys on everyone’s desire to get rich quick with little effort. Hell, I know the deal. I play the lottery when I’m in Virginia. But if it really were this easy, don’t you think everyone would be doing it? Wouldn’t they teach classes on it in business school? Wouldn’t you be able to open the Wall Street Journal and see a business roundtable with a guy who made his money in oil, a woman who led a tech company during the dot-com days, and a guy who sent out chain letters? Again, it fails the common sense test that there’d be this amazing way to make money with no effort that, coincidentally, nobody seems to have ever succeeded with.
• The math doesn’t work. Dick Hollman tells us to take our letter, make 200 copies, and send it out. Presumably each of the people who get it should do the same. So that’s 200 to the sixth power, or if my calculator is correct, that’s 64,000,000,000,000 (yes, 64 trillion people) who would have to get involved for the chain to reach its final stage. Now, granted, the whole premise is that “if only a fraction of the people respond, you’re rich!” That’s true, but the fractions will be much smaller than Dick Hollman wants you to believe. Why? Most people realize that chain letters are a scam and don’t do them. So I’m comfortable saying that you won’t get anywhere near the people you’re expecting.
• Small success does not prove validity. People have been posting “I’ve started doing it, and I’ve gotten $50 back! I’ve gotten $75 back! I got a rock!” Odds are, they’ve about hit their limit. And $75 is a long way from $800,000 – it’s practically a rounding error on that scale. That’s because, again, most people can recognize chain letters as a scam and avoid them. So your pool of people is pretty small.

So, the chain letter you got is a scam. If you participate in it, you may get a few dollars, you may even make back the money you spent on stamps (though with the price of stamps these days, it’s a stretch). But you will not see the promised riches, and you’ll be known as “That chain letter guy.”

I’m closing the comments on this entry, as I really don’t want it to become the one-stop shop for chain letter discussion. For further reading, check these links:

• US Postal Inspector chain letter page
• SoHo Jobs
• Skepdic on chain letters, pyramid schemes, and ponzi schemes
• Snopes on chain letters