This kind of thing nearly makes me cry with frustration. How can people not see through it in a second? I don't mean to sound arrogant or insulting, but surely, even if you hadn't spent much time on the Internet and even if you'd never seen this type of chain letter before, and even if you had no idea about the technology behind email, doesn't everything about it strike you as a scam? Free money, just for forwarding an email, the insertions of anecdotes: "I though it was a scam but I got my money."( And presumably tracked down every forwarded copy to add that in). And as for: "a friend of my good friend's Aunt Patricia, who works at Intel", it's a pretty weak argument from authority.
Having said that, I work for an ISP and some of my colleagues who should definitely know better have forwarded me this kind of thing, and some of them do it repeatedly, even though they didn't get their cheque the last time and they're still waiting for that free mobile phone. It never ceases to amaze me how gullible some people can be.
If in doubt, http://www.snopes.com