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Wednesday, June 30, 2004'Trust me, this works …'ROANOKE.COM COLUMNIST If you’re reading this online column, that means you’re connected to the Internet, and that means you probably get lots of forwarded e-mails from friends and coworkers detailing get-rich-quick schemes and chain letter prayers. Because this is a Web-based column, I thought this week we’d take a little break from politics and use my column as a public service about the Internet. I want to debunk some popular e-mail hoaxes in an effort to get people to stop forwarding all this trash that clogs up the Internet, as well as my reader e-mail inbox. It’s time this madness ends! Many of these hoaxes have been around for years in some form or another. I frequently see them waiting in my inbox, and often from intelligent friends I can’t believe would fall for them. But they do, and that’s how I found out about…. The Bill Gates/Microsoft/AOL email tracking programs. This is one of the most forwarded e-mails of all time. It usually comes as an e-mail letter from Bill Gates or AOL asking you to test their new email program by forwarding the e-mail on to as many people as possible. In return, they’ll track how many e-mails you forward and pay you $25 for each one. Sometimes the letter is from Applebee’s or Chili’s, telling you that they want to get their name out to the public and if you help them by forwarding the e-mail to 15 of your friends, they’ll reward you with a $50 gift certificate. Often, the e-mails will try to convince you of their authenticity with the sentence, "I’m forwarding this because the person who sent it to me is a good friend and doesn’t send me junk." This sentence was written by someone who started the e-mail 2,370 forwards ago, and is no longer identifiable. He and his good friend are laughing at how many times their worthless e-mail has made it around the Internet. The Bill Gates e-mail will always be sent by someone who writes, "Try this, it works! I just got my check for $4,350! What have you got to lose??" Well, your self-respect, for one thing, when your brighter friends receive the e-mail you forwarded to them and they laugh at how you fell for it… for the third time. In addition, junk like this clogs up the computers that route Internet traffic, and it can slow or crash your Internet service if enough of these e-mails are passed around. The truth is, there is no e-mail-tracking program that can tell anyone how many e-mails you’ve forwarded. These e-mails are total hoaxes. I know this because I always ask the people who forward them to me if they received their checks for $6,000 or their $50 gift certificates. The answer might surprise you – it’s always "NO." The Nigerian email scam. You can lose a lot of money with this scam. Although the scam – and warnings about it – have been around forever, I know someone in Roanoke who was a victim as recently as a month ago. The e-mail is a letter in broken English from some purported foreign government or bank official, usually from Nigeria or Sudan. The person says that he represents the estate of a deceased individual and must get millions of dollars out of the deceased’s account into an American bank before corrupt government officials confiscate the money. Somehow you were identified as a trustworthy person to help in this endeavor, and for your troubles, you will receive 10-20 percent of the $35 million. All the e-mailer needs is your fax number and bank information so he can transfer the $35 million to your U.S. account. Not only is this against the law for you to do, but for those unfortunate dolts who actually give bank information to the scammer (and many do), they find their bank accounts cleaned out a few days later. The make-a-wish or say-a-prayer and then "receive a miracle" chain e-mails. I especially enjoy these e-mails (extreme sarcasm). They have very lovely prayers, inspirational messages, and cute graphics of bunnies and smiley faces. At the end of the email the tone changes though, and you get a nasty ultimatum: If you don’t forward this email to at least 200 people, your dreams will never come true, you will lose everything, and your friend who sent you the e-mail will be so hurt you broke the chain, she will never speak to you again! (I could only be so lucky!) Like the Bill Gates e-mail hoax, I always ask the people who sent me the e-mails if they got their miracles granted. Feeling foolish for believing such bunk, they sheepishly tell me "no." But that’s often followed by the hold-on-to-anything, I-won’t-be-made-to-look-like-a-fool comeback, "It will happen… just in God’s time, not mine." Other popular e-mail hoaxes answered: You’ve won a foreign lottery you forgot you entered: Scam. Possible terrorists have been buying large numbers of UPS uniforms on ebay to gain access to secure facilities: False. The Swiffer WetJet sweeper is killing house pets because pets are licking the floors after they have been mopped with toxic Swiffer cleanser: False. The new WWII Memorial is inscribed with an excerpt from Franklin Roosevelt’s "Day of Infamy" speech, but the politically correct plaque omits his words "So Help Us God": False. Please do us all a favor and stop filling our inboxes with these e-mails. And when you get an e-mail that looks somewhat suspicious, before forwarding it to 50 of your closest friends, visit www.snopes.com or any other hoax website to see if the e-mail is for real. You’ll save us all a lot of time, you may save someone from being scammed, and you’ll save yourself some embarrassment. Sources: |
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