Chain Letter Prompts a Warning : Fraud: Officials say claim of easy riches is part of illegal pyramid scheme. They urge that such letters be turned in to post office.

A recent letter to a resident here promised an easy way to quick wealth.

“You have here a tried and proven method of getting all the money you will ever need or want,” said the Canadian-mailed letter, from a man identifying himself as an attorney. All the resident had to do, the letter said, was to mail $1 to each of five people and then add his name to the mailing list.

But U.S. postal inspectors, who examined the letter, said it was another illegal pyramid scheme. A postal inspector on Wednesday warned Southern California residents not to respond to the chain letter but to turn it in to their local post offices.

“The claims that this chain letter makes are simply lies,” said U.S. Postal Inspector Pamela Prince. She said people who perpetuate a chain letter can not only lose money in the scheme but also be prosecuted for violating federal laws.

“Chain letters are illegal,” Prince said. “People who continue these chain letters might be subject to criminal investigation or subpoenaed to testify at a trial.”

The letter was mailed from the province of Quebec but had no return address.

Prince said that mailing from Canada does not prevent a chain-letter scheme from being prosecuted.

“It still violates U.S. law, and our postal inspectors work with Canadian authorities in investigating these chain letters,” Prince said.

The letter received in Huntington Beach had the typed identification, but not actual signature, of a “Phillip A. Brown, attorney-at-law.”

“I am not revealing my address and phone number for a good reason,” the letter read. “Neither my staff nor I would have all the time to answer all the calls and questions that would come in from people all over the country.”

It also said Brown had made $36,470 by mailing letters.

“It’s still coming in. I am on my way to $100,000,” his letter said.

Recipients were directed to “immediately send $1, cash only, to each of the five names below. Wrap the dollar in a note saying ‘please add my name to your mailing list’ and include name and address. This is a legitimate service (for) which you are paying one dollar.”

Prince said this “alleged lawyer is trying to trick people. This is a not-so-cleverly disguised chain letter, pure and simple. The fact that no address or phone number is given sticks out like a sore thumb. Anyone legitimately touting an investment should be available for comment on it or to answer questions.”

The letter advised recipients to buy a list of names and addresses from a commercial company and then to send 100 copies of the letter to those names, in addition to the five on the original letter.

“As soon as you mail out these letters, you are in the mail-order business, and people will be sending you $1,” Brown’s letter said.

Prince said that doing what the letter instructed would be engaging in a mail fraud, punishable by up to five years in prison.

The five names on the letter received in Huntington Beach and for which $1 was solicited included one mailing address in Stanton, one in Glendale and three in various parts of Canada.

The Huntington Beach resident who received the $1 solicitation letter on the same day got a separate “good luck” chain letter, also mailed from Quebec, Canada. The “good luck” letter simply asked the recipient to make 30 copies and mail them to friends. It promised good fortune to those who continued to mail the letter and warned of bad luck if the chain were broken.

Postal inspectors said that such “prayer” and “good luck” letters, where no money is solicited, usually are not illegal.

But, she said, “our advice is to put all the chain letters you get in an envelope, and the next time you are at your neighborhood post office, give them to a clerk there to be delivered to the postal inspectors.”