Thursday, November 15, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #70



If it says "Forward this to (insert number here) friends and (insert positive action here) will happen," I almost immediately delete it, no matter what hex may befall me. I've been e-mailing for over 10 years and I've seen lots of hoaxes and bogus stories, and all kinds of e-mails. And I'm not afraid to tell the sender the truth.

Now I'm starting to see the old messages come around again. I guess, as far as e-mail is concerned, there's a sucker born every minute. Now that people who were initially reluctant to get e-mail or just didn't know how, are finally using e-mail. Those new users are gullible to the old hoaxes, just as I was over 10 years ago. I'm just amazed that these hoaxes cannot be killed off.

13 of My (not-so) Favorite E-Mail Hoaxes

1. Those that say "forward to 5 friends and see what happens!". Basically this doesn't work except to put yet another FW: e-mail address on a list and more of those annoying >>>>> all over the message so that it's hard to read the original text.

2. The Koran ( 9:11 ) says " . . . the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah." No such passage exists. It's purely a hoax to play on American patriotism.

3. Applebees will not give out $50 gift certificates to anyone who forwards a certain e-mail message to 5 friends.

4. Putting Vicks VapoRub on the bottom of your feet will cure night-time coughs. I just have to laugh!

5. Glade Plug-Ins will cause fires. I have received this warning message several times. After investigation, I found out that this is simply not true. It it was, they would have taken it off the market by now!

6. Kidnappers who snatch children in stores (or other public place), take them to a bathroom, cut their hair, and change their clothes. Frightening, and even plausible, but not true.

7. An Essay titled "The Paradox of our Time" was written by George Carlin. Simply not true! This is just another one of those laundry lists that cites everything that is wrong with today. Carlin didn't write such sentimental bull sh*t.

8. An atheist group is trying to get the FCC to ban religious radio stations. Simply untrue. The FCC has no authority to ban religious programming.

9. A form of the drug, Meth, called Strawberry Quik, is being handed out to children and it looks like candy. Okay, I'm sure it does look like candy. But drug dealers can't afford to give out bags of meth for Halloween.

10. Paul Harvey did not do a show on how Hillary Clinton helped two Black Panthers get away with murder, also untrue.

11. Any e-mail petition. They simply do not work and have no legality.

12. You do not have to register your cell phone on the Do Not Call registry.

13. Just in time for the holidays, the "Merry Christmas Virus" e-mail claims that a message with an attachment named "Merry Christmas" contains a virus that will "burn" the hard drive on the infected computer. No such virus exists, and if you have up-to-date virus protection software, (or a Mac, like me) you'll be okay. Just so you know, a virus cannot be passed around in a simple e-mail message. It can, however, be embedded in an attachment.


Just a quick word: Don't forward anything to all your friends and family if you are not sure of the validity of the message. Confirm it on www.snopes.com or just do a simple Internet search!






"

11 comments:

jenn said...

My sister yells at me when I don't pass it on, certain that bad things will happen to me. She's nuts!
Happy tt!

Unknown said...

Wait....you forgot so many...and are you trying to tell me some guy/gal from a foreign bank somewhere isn't trying to give me money????
roflmao, awesome T13

Raggedy said...

Terrific Thursday Thirteen!
My TT is posted.
Have a wonderful day!
Happy TT'ing!
*^_^
(=':'=)
(")_ (")Š
Raggedy

Anonymous said...

Gotta love those email hoaxes!

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with you on all of them! That Applebee's popup is the worst! Happy TT!

Anonymous said...

How about the one where Microsoft is giving away millions of dollars? I get that one the most. But I got over this kind of email back when we did chain letters.

Dane Bramage said...

Aw! I was so looking forward to retiring from my Microsoft millions from forwarding emails. Iw ill pass on certain inspirational emails but I NEVER forward anything that tells me not to break the chian. Nor will I forward it if the messages promises God will bless me if I do or curse me if I don't. I forward it because I think the recipient will benefit from it. Then it is up to thhem what they do with it.

Better late than never, my 56th edition is up. 13 Types of People Who Get On My Nerves Stop by if you get a chance.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! You have done everyone a great service, if they want to listen. My rule is that anything at all that asks you to forward it to everyone in your address book should go into the trash file. Did you ever get an e-mail that has been forwarded several times and has literally hundreds of email addresses on it? Spammers love those!

People also need to know that there is no such thing as an email counter, and also that Bill Gates is no going to hand out cash to people who forward a message to their friends. But people still fall for all these. Some have been going round the net for years.

Yours is probably the most useful TT this week.

Anonymous said...

Man, I love the POSSUM T13 on the post beneath. Is that adorable or what? (I'm a possum friend).

A great list of email hoaxes and the deleterious effects of spam. I never forward anything to email lists---even good stuff is annoying if you're not in the mood for it, I think.

Malcolm said...

Thanks for posting these hoaxes. I have a love/hate relationship with email. It's great to be able to communicate so quickly with people from all over the world. However, the scummy scamming spammers of the world make me sick. Fear and the lure of something for nothing is too hard to exist for some people and spammers know this all too well.

Zenmomma said...

My dad has sent me so many of these and I'm forever telling him that they are hoaxes. I think he is finally learning the ease and clarity of snopes.com.