With a chain letter, it's the same, but it's conducted through the mail, which opens up mail fraud laws, also. Second, the mathematics used in the letters and schemes is flawed. As anyone in mail order will tell you, this is absurd, especially in regard to chain letters. This table will show you how many people will have to participate in order to fulfill the promises in the chain letter. Let's look at what will realistically happen.
Chain letters get horrible responses.
Try this table on for size. That won't happen. In other words, what you are doing in a chain letter, is relying on others to do the work that will make money for you. There just aren't any free lunches, though. Somewhere along the line, enough people will drop out that the letter just can't continue.