would this be an illegal scheme?

[bdsic98]

so i got this email stating that you make can make thousands and only investing 6$ and it works like this

there is a list of people 6 number 1-6 each person goes to this web site. http://www.myproductcenter.com/ makes a free product and sells it for one dollar.

for each person on the list they have one product from the site. they then post the link for their product next to their number.
in order for this to work , you have to go to each persons product, pay 1$ each. and then after you have bought all of their products for a dollar, you make your own and add your self to the list at the bottom. you become person number six and every body moves up one. and number one moves off the list.

next it asks to post 200 letters so that on average 15 people will do the same and it ends up like this
- When you post 200 letters, it is estimated that at least 15 people 
will respond and send you $1 ($15).

- Those 15 will post 200 letters each and 225 will send $1 ($225). 

- Those 225 will post 200 letters each and 3,375 people will send you 
$1 ($3,375). 

- Those 3,375 people will post 200 letters each and 50,625 people 
will send you $1 ($50,625). 

- Those 50,625 will post 200 letters each and 749,375 people will send 
you $1 ($749,375).

�- At this point your name drops off the list, but so far, you have 
received $813,615.00.

so im just wondering if it is illegal, i mean you actually have a product.

[marval]

Don't waste your money, it might not be illegal but it is surely a scam. The experts say never part with any money beforehand.

[daffy654]

This post seems like a blatant advertising scam to me so I have reported it as such.
Anyone who gets involved in this sort of idiotic scheme deserves to be ripped off.

[Buenchico]

Unless they comply with very strict guidelines, 'pyramid schemes' are illegal here in the UK. Nearly every other country in the world has similar legislation. (A 15 year sentence has recently been handed down by the Chinese authorities to someone who ran a pyramid scheme).

Let's look at the maths. To keep it simple, I'll initially just assume that each person sends out 15 letters (with a 100% success rate):

The guy at the top of the pyramid sends out 15 letters. So that (obviously) means that there are 15 people on 'Level 2'.

Following through we get the following numbers:
Level 3: 225
Level 4: 3,375
Level 5: 50,625
Level 6: 759,375
Level 6: 11,390,625
Level 7: 170,859,375
Level 8: 2,562,890,625

Hang on a minute, let's look at that Level 8 figure. It's over 2.5 billion people. That's more than one in three of all the men, women and children in the world. Do you really think that you're going to get all those people to send money?

Now let's remember that the system is actually based upon people sending out 200 letters. The '15 out of 200' hit rate would only continue to work if the people sending out the letters could be sure that the recipients hadn't already received letters from people higher up the pyramid. So, the people on Level 6 have got to collectively send out letters to 151,875,000 people who've not previously received them That's half the population of the USA!

Similarly, the people on Level 7 collectively need to find over 34 billion people to send letters to. That's about 5 times the population of the planet!

Chris