"Almost everyone with an e-mail account gets spam," said Timothy J. Muris, Chairman of the FTC. "It's intrusive, unwelcome, and annoying. Deceptive junk e-mail is also illegal. We want to send a message today: we're going after deceptive spam and the people who send it. We want it off the Net."

Seven defendants caught in an FTC sting operation have agreed to settle charges that they were spamming consumers with deceptive chain letters. The letters were slightly changed variations on the same message. They promised "$46,000 or more in the next 90 days," or similar extravagant amounts to recipients who were to send $5.00 in cash to each of four or five participants at the top of the list. The letters instructed new recruits to place their own name and address at the top of the list and remove the name on the bottom. In return for the $5.00 payment, recruits received "reports" providing instructions about how to start their own chain letter schemes and recruit tens of thousands of others via spam.

"This chain letter deceptively claims the program is legal and urges recruits who question its legitimacy to contact the FTC's Associate Director for Marketing Practices. Well, I am the Associate Director for Marketing Practices," said Eileen Harrington, "and these chain letters are illegal."

In September 2000, the FTC sent letters to 1,000 spammers, warning them that their chain letter spam scheme was illegal and instructing them to stop promoting their chain letters, to return any money they had received by participating in the program, and to forward a copy of the FTC's warning letter to everyone they had spammed. In October 2001, the FTC searched online newsgroups and the agency's junk e-mail database looking for the chain letter scam. They found more than 2,000 participants in the chain letter from almost 60 countries around the world. Using undercover post office boxes and e-mail accounts, FTC investigators and paralegals sent the requisite $5.00 fee to individuals who had previously been warned, but who appeared to be continuing in the scheme. Those who responded by sending the undercover FTC employees the "report" demonstrated that despite the FTC warning letter, they continued to participate in the illegal chain letter spam.