A NEW postal get rich quick scheme has been condemned by Swindon Trading Standards officers.

A letter being sent unsolicited to homes claims an £87 outlay will reap a £40,000 return in a matter of months.

But Geoff Snowball, who heads Swindon Council's Trading Standards team, warned it is an another illegal pyramid investment scheme.

And he said it is mathematically impossible to make any cash out of the con.

Pensioner Iris Garret, 67, from Kirby Close, wasn't taken in.

When the letter dropped through her front door she brought it straight to the Evening Advertiser.

She said: "I think it's disgusting that they send these letters through the post and there's nothing can be done to stop them.

"There's a lot of gullible people that might try it people that think they can make a quick bit of money.

"I was going to put it straight in the bin but my husband said I should bring it around to the paper so that other people aren't taken in."

The letter Mrs Garret received claimed to be from a man called David Rhodes, who said he came up with the money-making scheme in 1998, and it had made him more than £500,000. The complicated pro-cess involves sending £10 to a person at the top of a list of names attached to the letter.

Mr Rhodes then asked the recipient to mail his letter on to another 200 people chosen at random from the phone directory.

Within 60 days he claimed the chain will return to the sender reaping them over £40,000.

Geoff Snowball said the scheme was a variation on an age-old operation.

He explained: "It's the old thing of don't part with any money.

"It's been mathematically calculated that the only people who are going to win are the people who start it off and the few people at the start of the letter.

"These sort of things keep resurfacing from time to time.

"When something comes unsolicited through the letter box there is usually a catch.

"The DTI has come to the conclusion that there's no way you can legislate against this sort of thing.

"The only way to deal with it is mass education, to get the message out that, when you get these things, bin them and don't be taken in.

"Unfortunately there will always be somebody some-where who gets taken in."

There are no contact details on the letter for David Rhodes, and Swindon Trading Standards say it is probably just a name used to front the operation.