September 18 Report – It’s a Bust…

I wanted to allow at least two months before I make any judgements about this experiment. It has now been ten weeks since the mailing went out and I have a grand total of $3.00 to show for it. Three responses with cash. I thought that perhaps I would get at least two or three more from the efforts of the two that have responded so far, but no…

As most of us has suspected, this does not generate a lot of money for participants – at least not for me…

Why not? I can think of a couple of reasons to begin with. First of all, the numbers DO add up. If you received X per cent response rate, and all of the participants followed the plan exactly, it would generate money. It appears from this experiment that you are lucky to get ONE percent response, much less 15-20 percent…

Secondly, even if there were many more people that decide they want to give this a try, there are no controls that prohibit them from either NOT sending the individuals on the list the dollars, or just as likely, many might create a new list.

My recommendation? If you get this letter, save yourself time and money and toss it… Unless there is some sort of control or monitoring, this plan will probably do no better for you than it has done for me so far.

I will come back to this experiment blog and report anything else as it happens…

HAPPY HUNTING!

Opp Seek

Experiment Update – August 2, 2007

Well, It’s been two weeks since my last post. There hasn’t been very much to report so far, but I HAVE received several more responses. As of yesterday, I have received 7 responses. Five of them were other chain letters, and two were actual responses with dollar bills in them. So, in the four weeks since the beginning of this experiment, I have received a grand total of two dollars!

I think it is possible that I will receive more responses from the people that I mailed to. But even if I didn’t, let’s do some math and see how things should turn out if those two get the same response rate that I did (just under 1%). If those two got two, that got two, that got two… (you get the idea.) I could theoretically receive $254.00 down to the seventh level. I invested $328.00 in this experiment. Subtract $254.00 from that, and it would be a loss of $74.00. Not bad, actually, as some of my friends said that I probably wouldn’t even get ONE dollar in return. It is still early in the experiment. The letter said to expect gigantic returns with in 90 days. If I get my original $328.00 back, I will be pleased, and have the satisfaction of having participated in an experiment that will either prove how lucrative these programs are, or (more likely) how they are a waste of time and money. I know that I do not expect too much, but stay tuned for at least another 60 days and let’s see what happens!

Got My First Responses!

I didn’t expect any responses for at least 7-10 days after mailing the letters. Imagine my surprise when I checked my mailbox last night and found TWO responses! I figured that if this chain letter, I mean capital accumulation program has any chance of producing a profit, I should have at least 5 people that respond to my letter with a dollar bill. So, just 4 days after I sent my letter, I already have TWO responses! I believe the reason I got these back so quickly is because they both come from cities that are within one-day mail delivery from where I live…

I eagerly opened the first envelope expecting to find my first one-dollar bill, and was disappointed to find that someone I had mailed my letter to had responded, not with a one-dollar bill, but with a different chain letter (oops, I keep calling it that!), I mean capital accumulation program letter. I opened the second letter, and found the same thing… :-((

So, the score so far after just FOUR DAYS is:

Two responses – no dollars – two appeals to join their capital accumulation program (CAP).

We’ll see if we get anything next week…

Ten things to think about while waiting for the money to roll in ;-)

Well, the letters are on their way to 200 opportunity seekers. Here are some thoughts about this (in no particular order) that have crossed my mind:

1.) The letter states that this is not an illegal chain letter because you are offering something of value for the $1.00 fee. That something is adding the person’s name to your mailing list. The letter cites a regulation (TITLE 18, SEC 1302 & 1342 OF THE U.S. POSTAL AND LOTTERY LAWS).

2.) There were two names on the list that I bought from the mailing list company that were from Puerto Rico. I went ahead and sent them the letter, too. I am not familiar with mail to PR and the U.S Virgin Islands. I wonder if one of those two will respond?

3.) The mailing list company offered to email the list of 200 names to me in a data file (they actually sent over 250). I chose that option rather than asking them to mail me the list on address stickers. I was impatient to get this experiment going! The data file worked great! It was easy to print the addresses on the labels (Avery #5160).

4.) The $32.00 for the 200+ labels got me their 30-day hotlist labels. The company said that these names are guaranteed to be less than 30 days old, and that they are all people that have responded to some kind of opportunity seeker ad in the last 30 days.

5.) It will be interesting to see what kind of response I get from this list. I saved all the names, so any responses I get within the next four to six weeks, I can cross-check with the list and keep track. I will report this back in later posts.

6.) If this letter produces even a fraction of what it claims it should bring in ($800,000), this will be a LOT of one-dollar bills… Will my bank be willing to exchange them for larger bills, or even to take the time to count them when I deposit them in the bank?

7.) What kind of record keeping will work best for keeping track of the results and showing the cash income to report to the IRS?

8.) What would be the best and most profitable use of the list of names I get back along with the one-dollar bills?

9.) If this DOES eventually produce tens of thousands of letters coming in, how will the mailbox storefront react to this volume of mail coming into a medium sized mailbox? (DREAM ON!!!)

10.) Again, if this brings in a LOT of mail, it will be quite a job opening all the mail and entering each name in a spreadsheet…