Pyramid scheme. "Donut-Dollar" $1 Ante. 11 names. No
use of mails. Description only. US, 1949.
A recruit starts off the pyramid
by visiting a member's house, where he gets coffee and doughnuts, meets other
people and pays $1. The next night he is required to take two other persons
to another house; he pays nothing but each of them pays $1. The next night
he rests, and the fourth night he entertains 12 persons with coffee and doughnuts.
Four of them have paid their $1 the previous night, but the other eight pay
their host $1 each.
After consulting carefully kept charts, the host, now No. 8 in the
pyramid, delivers that $8 to No 6, who gets the same sum from other No. 8's.
Then No. 6 takes the money to No. 1.
Having collected, No. 1 drops out - he ma re-enter at the base of
a pyramid - and the two No. 2's wait hope fully for their collections on
the following night. It' supposed to be 12 days from the first doughnuts
to the heaped dollars.
Published: The Post-Standard
(Syracuse, New York), Feb. 28, 1949, p. 16.
DOUGHNUT-DOLLAR 'CHAIN LETTER' SWEEPS NATION TO EAST COAST. NEW YORK (NANA)
- "The doughnut and dollar "chain letter" - purporting to pay $2,048 on a
$1 investment - has spread across the country from California to the east
coast. From Westport, Conn., comes the report that George S. Norfleet was
paid off at his home one evening last week with a welcome sum of money although
not the full $2,048. Additional reports from Connecticut rumor payments to
others of $850 and $900.
The idea of the pyramid is this:" [above text]. [calculations
omitted] "Because the mails aren't used, it is difficult to find a law against
the pyramid."
Entered by DWV, Aug. 24, 2014.
me1949-02-28p1_pyr_doughnut_s1n11
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