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Comment from Mark on 2011-12-31

2011-12-31T23:37:21Z

I had a "not so bright" colleague forward a hoax email to me... in a somewhat vexed state of mind, i replied with [abridged for relevance]:

Subject: Re: FW: Police warning - worth reading ---this is fact !

surely an official police warning would come FROM THE POLICE?

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/infant-car-seat-gang-warning.shtml

In fact, I'd be more worried about "fake" checkpoints with gang members dressed up as policemen. I recommend everyone to NOT STOP AT CHECKPOINTS and then ring the police immediately afterward with details of where and when it was, and your license number and car registration details in case they want to send you a reward for your civic duty thus executed.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I don't think this world benefits from the wholesale and thoughtless spread of fear and dis-trust. Take the time to verify before forwarding...

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Comment from GREG JACKSON on 2011-10-15

2011-10-15T22:14:40Z

"They're mostly bogus and known as "Urban Legends".
"Free money" ? lol I guess people will never learn.

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Comment from GREG JACKSON on 2011-10-15

2011-10-15T22:07:12Z

I had a friend that repeatedly sent emails of this sort. Most were jokes (and most weren't that funny) and he would shotgun them out to everyone. After my polite request to stop these forwarded emails, he kept doing it, albeit less. I blocked him. Problem solved.

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Comment from mahendra on 2011-01-31

2011-01-31T18:19:49Z

do e-mail service providers pay money for forwarding mails .....

NO. Never. That's an urban legend.

31-Jan-2011

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Comment from Mark Jacobs on 2011-01-19

2011-01-19T21:12:10Z

Since Facebook has come out, I've gotten much fewer of these kinds of emails. Instead of urban legend emails I see more and more of these re-post this on your status update messages. BTW has any one tried the "Nieman Marcus" recipe? Is is any good?

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Comment from Darryl on 2010-11-30

2010-12-01T01:47:06Z

The other thing about forwarding all these emails is that most do not erase the old email addresses of those that have forwarded these messages around for ever. I get people that send me these and I could make a fortune selling email addresses. Some messages I get are almost a megabyte in size for just the email addresses included in it.

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Comment from John on 2010-03-30

2010-03-31T00:43:41Z

I'll forward this to everyone on my email list and encourage them to do the same!

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Comment from sundog on 2010-02-09

2010-02-09T17:52:17Z

Leo, thank you for this article. I emailed it last year to a friend who was always bombarding my old hotmail address with not only the hoaxes and misinformation you mentioned, but political/religious/wingnut messages. She apparently assumed I agreed with her on these, but some of them were so offensive I came very close to blocking her at one point. Your article solved my problem in that she apparently was offended by it: she no longer emails or talks to me. Which is both kind of sad and good, and a bit of an irony, since I taught her how to use email.

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Comment from Chuck on 2009-02-17

2009-02-17T19:43:44Z

Years ago, a worker at the US Postal Service got an email with a dire warning about a virus. They hit a "forward to all" button that sent it to everyone in the USPS. And so did the next guy, and the next . . . Before it was done, they'd sent so many emails to so many people so fast, they crashed their email system. In this case, the EMAIL MESSAGE WAS THE VIRUS!

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Comment from dunstergirl on 2007-03-18

2007-03-19T05:45:37Z

Sigh...not just urban legends (the Neiman-Marcus cookie one was making the rounds 15+ years ago when connections were still limited to dial-up BBSs) but the Internet equivalent of chain letters (send to 10 people and suddenly your life will change, of course for the better, until all your friends send you snippy comments about useless emails in their inbox), petitions (check the source first), "really cute" (and huge) pictures of animals that all your friends just HAVE to see, jokes, etc...PLEASE folks think about the recipient and whether a) they will really appreciate the message and b) they have the bandwidth to download it. I live in a rural community and pay a lot for satellite broadband (for my work) but most of my neighbours still use dialup and even they are guilty of passing on this stuff!

Think I'll bookmark this link for future replies to folks that I thoroughly like but who haven't fully learned "netiquette" yet....

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Comment from Georg on 2006-08-16

2006-08-16T13:22:55Z

I have lately been getting e-mails stating to invest in stock. These are coming from people I don't even know! They also ask me to send them to friends and family. Funny part is I looked into the stocks and their losing money not making it. They pass through the spam filter by using titles like...Re: dental negotiation

Besides adding them to my spam filter how can I block these people out?

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Comment from Tracey on 2006-01-15

2006-01-15T22:08:50Z

Thanks SO much, Leo, for this excellent summary of the things to be wary of in your Inbox. I've started providing the link to this article to everybody who sends me one of the offending emails, for their edification. Well done!

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Comment from Ingrid on 2005-11-23

2005-11-23T10:52:48Z

Hi, I don't think you've answered this:
Why do people actually make forwards? I'm guessing that it's not just for fun so they must be making money from it? Maybe you don't want to tell how it works incase more people get on the bandwagon, but please I am genuinly interested and it would help me convince others how wrong it is.

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