Don't be so damned charitable!

[prokopton]

Chain letters are still chain letters.

Think twice when next you receive an e-mail about some pathetic case, asking you to forward this to all your e-mail address book to "help the afflicted ones." Including, maybe, the subject of pr's thread about the woman sentenced to stoning.
This is how the scammers and miscreants get huge e-mail lists and maybe how so many of us BB users get these strange afflictions in our 'puters, such as cookala and Kristi et al. are experiencing.
Next time you get a request to forward to "everybody you know.."
[SIZE=3]Don't![/SIZE]

Geoff
you wanna help, send 'em a cheque.. by snail mail!

[cookala]

Yeah...and the ones that promise you money or threaten you with bad luck if you don't send them to 10 or so other people really get me - people can be so gullible sometimes.


cookala
they're a pain in the arse

[Kristi]

An emphatic Amen! Preach it, Brothah!

[Donner]

Originally posted by cookala
Yeah...and the ones that promise you money or threaten you with bad luck if you don't send them to 10 or so other people really get me - people can be so gullible sometimes.


I get perverse satisfaction at scoffing at threats. So, go ahead, just try it, like, you know who I am? Please. I never forwarded snail mail chain letters; why would I forward the low scum tech versions? I also, as a matter of course, check out any frantic emails about this or that virus warning (you know the type--Check your harddrive for blah blah! Follow these instructions or your computer will explode!) at a reputible site like symantec.com before I'd even think about taking action. And I never forward those on, either.

When in doubt, delete. The gullible will always be with us.

Donner,
who was disillusioned for good
when she didn't get the 144 kitchen towels
she was promised in that chain letter of 1972.

[HowardM2]

So that's where those towels came from.

[Harry R]

The other thing about charitable appeals is that even the honest ones often leave relics whizzing around the internet long after the the need for them has ended. The same applies to snail mail - there's some poor sod who still receives bagsful of cards adressed to his dead son, who sent out a chain letter when the son was terminally ill.

Someone pointed me towards a site that listed all these dead issues, scams, jokes and so on. But I can't remember the URL now.

Harry

[Donner]

First my towels, then my top poster position--for awhile. Mwhahahahahaha!

See? Recompense surely cometh.

[Harry R]

http://www.truthorfiction.com/ seems to be just the thing.

As an example, in the specific case of the Nigerian stoning story -

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/aminalawal.htm

[cookala]

Donner,
who was disillusioned for good
when she didn't get the 144 kitchen towels
she was promised in that chain letter of 1972.


Ha!!! and I'm still waiting for my mega dollars - give one get 100 in 3 weeks.

cookala
burned once
in my naive youth -
but never again!

[cookala]

Originally posted by Donner
First my towels, then my top poster position--for awhile. Mwhahahahahaha!

See? Recompense surely cometh.

Um, dare I ask - but what is a "top poster position"?

cookala
"position" always makes me think of one thing
when written in the same message with "cometh"
heh

[dagonee]

I thought this advice was so good I forwarded it to everyone in my email address book. You should do the same! Or smurfs will eat your babies!

Dagonee

[Kristi]

Speaking of Smurfs (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15958&item=2946801704)...


Kristi
*showing off

[Donner]

Originally posted by cookala
Um, dare I ask - but what is a "top poster position"?

cookala
"position" always makes me think of one thing
when written in the same message with "cometh"
heh

Shirley Recompense--heroine of some great bodice-rippers. Heh.

[prokopton]

Originally posted by cookala
Um, dare I ask - but what is a "top poster position"?


someone who has 3955 posts to her credit.

Geoff
Bad Ass Nun?

[Alasdair]

What amazes me about the chain letters is that I get ones about Bill Gates giving away thousands of dollars forwarded from people that actually work in IT - how old is this story? Does anyone live in the real world? Am I the only sane one in the world?

Steve Jobs is the one giving away thousands.

:)

Al.

[David Bowers]

Heh (http://www.smilepop.com/index.cfm?action=viewcard&content_id=8407&page_id=8407)

[earthshoes]

I got a letter recently from Abdul from Africa. It seemed that Abdul got my name from a list of MSN messenger members, liked what he saw in my (non-existent) profile and just knew that I could be trusted with his money.

All he needed was for me to give him my checking account number so that he could deposit several thousand dollars in it---part of which I would keep just for the favor of allowing him to launder it in my account (though that isn't the term he used).
Wasn't that nice of him?


Gosh! Something for nothing! What a deal!

[Kristi]

Abdul is cheating on me now??