I have come across chain letters since I was in grade school. I received a number of them from friends throughout my primary and secondary years in school. It would come in the form of a supposed prayer to a favorite saint who will readily grant you the first thing you wish for. There were conditions though. You had to copy that letter ten or twenty times and pass it on to friends. This seems like an easy enough task, but then personal computers did not exist back then. You had to handwrite everything, one by one. Also, it came with a curse. It stated that if you failed to do it, something bad will happen to you and/or your loved ones. It outlined many instances of people who supposedly had their wishes granted after complying, and tragedies that occurred to people who refused to believe in the letter. Gullible as I was, I remember suffering many 'handaches' then trying to make 20 copies and distribute them to prevent any bad luck for me and my family.
Today, I continually receive the modern, electronic versions of these pesky little letters. It is now made more annoying as those who forward it have unwittingly advertised your email address to spammers. We all should know by now that forwarded messages are the spammers' way to glean email addresses for marketing purposes. So not only do you get a curse on your head when you receive these things, your inbox gets crammed with junk email selling cheaper prescription drugs in Canada, porn site invitations, and worse, you can get a computer virus. There is also the more sinister 'phishing' emails that pose as a legitimate businesses trying to get your bank/credit card information. So you can actually put your friends and family in a bad situation if you do it!
So please, folks, think before you click on 'Forward'. Don't believe everything you receive. A lot of those emails are hoaxes, and you can check at www.snopes.com ! If you really feel it is something you must forward (really hilarious jokes or truly important information that can help), do the blind carbon copy option so everyone's email addresses are hidden.
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3 comments:
I think the most obnoxious email chain letters are the ones with a fat powerpoint file to go with it. By sending the file, you're not only passing on a guilt trip and threat that something bad will happen to you if you don't perpetuate this behavior, but you're taking up so much room and network bandwidth to send it! That's also beside the fact that the file could have a virus. Oh and...making a statement saying that you're passing it on "just in case it's true" does not make it okay either.
Okay, I've let it out. I'll stop ranting now.
Thanks for getting me fired up.
I like it when Victoria's engineering side comes out and she starts talking about network bandwitdtch, disk space, and viruses.
Newlyweds... *shaking head*
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