Email forwards.. do you research them first?

Originally Posted by JuJubee

I delete them.

Did you get the one about two guys selling 'perfume' in parking lots?
Apparently, when the potential customer smells the perfume, they pass out, and are then robbed, etc.

I don't know if that's true or not.

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Here's what snopes says about that one. Looks like it started with a woman who took money from her boss. Frightening scenario, though.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/perfume.asp

Originally Posted by Bonnie1965

I just love the ones that say "If you love (God, Jesus, the Pope, et al) you will forward this." Of course, if I don't forward it them my soul will be damned for eternity

Yep, deleted!

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I got one from my sister last night, who knows that I'm pagan, said something like Forward this if you are one of the 97% who loves God and Jesus... OK, well, that stat is BS to begin with, but if I'm damned for eternity it won't be because I didn't forward that email.

I only forward ones with a decent reminder of safety, or a cute joke/story. IMO it doesn't matter if the incident is real or not, if the safety reminder is valid I'll forward that as a reminder.

I don't forward all of the bajillion "If you love Jesus", "This week is Friendship Week" (Is it every week now?), "If you forward this, Bill Gates will send you money", etc. emails.

They are almost always from my sister, who just got the internet a couple of years, so she has an excuse - she hasn't seen them a million times already! My Dad is guilty of sending the "Friendship Week" emails. He's just sentimental like that, and I know that he really means it.

Originally Posted by valanhb

My Dad is guilty of sending the "Friendship Week" emails. He's just sentimental like that, and I know that he really means it.

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Aw that is a small price to pay for a good daddy

I will research first. Then I guess this is why I'm such a jerk, but I'll reply back with the link to the snopes/google/whatever site that disproves their email.

I just hate when people clog up the internet.

Originally Posted by MuttigreeMom

This is the third time this week I've gotten a panicked email forwarded to me that was a blatant hoax. I get these so often I'm starting to think I'm the only one that checks into these before passing them on.

So far this week I've gotten:
1. the serial killer luring women out of their homes with a baby crying
2. telemarketers getting your cell phone number and charging you for the calls (twice)

Do you research or just forward?

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I hit delete

Argghhhhh I HATE stupid forwards like that!!!!! Hate hate hate them. My SIL and one friend in particular are incredibly gullible and ALWAYS send them onto me!

I've said to then so many times "nobody can track the email - they cannot send you a free phone/tv/whatever if you annoy all your friends, they will NOT donate $$ to a charity in your name, you will not have bad luck/bad love life/be struck down if you don't send it". All you need to do is copy a couple of lines of it into Google, and one of the urban legends page will come back with why it's false and how it started.

It was always funniest when my SIL sent them, cause she'd forward them to DH and I and we'd both respond with a link to snopes or whatever showing it to be false and a note saying "please check it out before forwarding and scaring all your gullible friends and filling my inbox"

i normally delete them. I hate them cluttering up my inbox. And the ones that say pass this on to x amount of people. They automatically go to the garbage bin.

I normally don't forward emails as I find it VERY annoying when they are forwarded to me.

I have seen so many of them like 576 times

If I get them I just read and delete. Sometimes I dont even read. But if its animal related I do.

Delete here ...

I never even read them, I just delete them all. I figure if its something I need to know about, it will be on the news. My friends and family know not to bother sending any kind of forward to me, whether is a story, a joke, or anything else.

My filter usually deletes them as spam. The ones that you have to forward to so many people I delere as well.

Oh, I hate to get forwards. I don't read any of them unless it is from someone that I know rarely forwards. If my dad sends one then I know it's worth reading, but I have a friend who will forward me 10-20 emails at one time. I finally had to tell her to stop sending so many. I didn't like doing that, but I got tired of dealing with all of them.

I delete mine.If I don't know the sender, into the trash they go.

I cringe the moment I see the "FW:" in the title. Years ago, my elderly uncle put me in his address list, and he was without a doubt the most enthusiastic forwarder on the planet. I had been virtually spam-free, but between the nonsense Uncle Jon was forwarding to me and the spammers who pulled my email address out of his headers, I was inundated within a few months. I finally had to just give up the account and start a new email address... which I have carefully kept from Uncle Jon. I phone him now and then instead.

Oh, but now there's Sunny! A good friend of my mom's who got my address to send a picture she wanted my mom to see, and then she put me in her address list, and now I'm getting all the same kind of garbage again. But at least I don't have to look at it -- Sunny is on WebTV or something, and her forwards show up for me as text gibberish. Thank goodness!

Also, I'm using Google's free web-based email client now, and it has a near-perfect spam filter. What a relief.

I disregard all forwarded emails. Actually I think forwarding emails is very rude. My email address is private. It's a means that I use to give and send information...just like in the old snail mail days. People wouldn't dream of just randomly handing out someone's home address or telephone number to a bunch of strangers on the street, yet some don't give that same care and consideration when it comes to someone's email address.

In fact I tell people who have my email address to leave me off of their email forward lists, and if I get a forward email I write them back telling them to please not send me more.

I have actually been known to ask people to delete me from their address book if they keep sending me "forwarded" emails. One guy kept saying he "forgot", but in the meantime I was getting all kinds of emails that contained viruses/worms in them because of his 'forgetfulness'. I actually had to change my email address thanks to him.

Some people think I'm rude, but I'm only looking out for myself and my computer. Sending email forwards is really a dangerous practice. Think about it....

If someone sent me an email forward that was also sent to 10 other people, 10 people now have my email address on their computer. If those 10 people send to 10 friends each, that's an additional 100 people that have my email address on their computer. If those 100 people each sent to 10 of their friends... well you do the math. The point is that it doesn't take long to have your email address sent around to thousands and thousands of strangers.

Some of those people have their email box set to add people automatically to their address book.

An email virus/worm will "spoof" an email address and send out mailings to not only those in the address book, but also any addresses sitting in the sent or deleted folders too. So if your address has been sent around to 1000 email boxes, any one of those 1000 people could be infected with a virus/worm and not know it (and many don't know it) and they will be bombarding people with the virus/worm.

So the more people who are sent your email address through email forwards, the larger your chances are of getting emails with viruses in them because anyone who received the email containing your email address could be infected and sending the virus to you.

If by chance I have to forward an email for whatever reason, I never just add everyone's address to the "To" line. I put my own address in the "To" line and then the other addresses in the "BCC" line. That way peoples' email address aren't spread around.

Chain letters or mass e-mail forwards are always hoaxes. If there is some horrible virus or whatever, you'll hear about it in other ways.

I have an entire e-mail address set up for people who send me that crap, and I never look at it.

I am worried because I keep getting phishing scams in my school e-mail though. Always about eBay. Those I report to the real company. Although yesterday I "logged in" to their fake thing with the username scammers.

I always check snopes.com to verify them; and usually, no surprise here, they turn out to be false. The I email the sender back, and direct to to snopes for the real story.

lol i just delete them