GOLDEN CHAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 12, 13 July 1935, Page 10

GOLDEN CHAIN

"GET RICH QUICK" DEVICE

TIME WASTING IN OFFICES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, June 22. j By this fame it is more than likely that,the Golden Chain Letter, the latest "Get rich quick" device from America, will have invaded New Zealand., Thousands of letters are now in circulation in Great Britain. It has seized the imagination of perfectly honest people, but the chances for dishonesty are so obvious that it is likely to become a very great nuisance in the near future. The scheme is wasting so much time in the City and. West End that several banks, insurance companies, and big stores have forbidden their staffs to take part. A. typical Golden Chain letter reads:— ' "Follow these instructions and you will get £1562 10s. ,'. "Within three days make five clear copies of this letter, leaving out the top name and addresii^on the list, and adding your own name and address to the bottom of the list. Give these letters to five of your friends. "Be sure that they carry on the chain." Then follows a statement as to what wjlll or should happen. The principal feature of the scheme is in the last sentence of the letter: "Send 2s to number one'on the list." The amount varies.in different letters. It is reported that the menace became very serious in America, for there is nothing whatever to prevent a person from putting his own name at the top of the list on 10,000 sheets and sending them to people whose names and addresses can be obtained ■ from a directory. As for the mathematics of the scheme, when a person sends his 2s he becomes part of a proposed'chain of 15,625 people, and if every person in. this chain is to receive £1562 10s they will each need another 15,625 contributions, so that it seems that over 305,000,000. people must be found willing to take part to ■ give the first 15,625 people the promised, sums. The craze has grown so rapidly that the heads.of many firms are determined ~to stop the waste of time caused by discussions in city offices, and by the efforts of members of their staff to get their friends to make sheets on the spot. There is the threat of instant dismisal for any employee who introduces sheets into ■the joffice.