These ones are SO old, and just reading it makes me mad at whomever wrote it, with blatant lies everywhere and obvious messages to try to keep you from doing anything...

The problem with these schemes, is that it all depends on whether YOU can convice other people to give you money and then they ask other people...

Nobody gets anything out of it, it's just moving money toward the first people to 'sign up'. Getting any money yourself depends on getting suckers to send you money. Which is what the originator is doing...

It's really so transparent, I don't know why so many people seem to fall for them. <sigh>

But yes, these ARE illegal. They're flat-out lying.