E-mail, chat, & VoIP forum: Poll: What do you do when you receive a chain letter in your e-mail?

in most cases. Sometimes, if it's cut enough, I'll send it on but remove the bottom of it.


Rick

For one thing they are usually fake or or impossible.
And my friends would hate me for forwarding it to them.

Each time my cousin sends me some such foolishness-- the only person on the planet who seems to do so-- I reply and chew her out for such foolishness and then delete the silly thing. Sometimes she'll fight me for a couple of iterations but the thread usually dies quickly... with no lessons learned on either side.

>

>THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY - IT IS FOR REAL

>To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages,

>But this is from my friend Pearlas Sandborn and she really is

>an attorney.

>If she says that this will work - It will work. After all,What have

>you got to lose?

>SORRY EVERY BODY.. JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!! I'm an

>attorney, And I know the law. This thing is for real. Rest assured

>AOL and &nbs p; Intel will follow through with their promises for

>fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one

>filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.

>

>Dear Friends: Please do not take this for a junk letter.

>Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent

>later.

>Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies

>and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the

>most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail

>beta test.

>When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will

>track it (If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks

>time period.

>For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay

>you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on,

>Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives

>it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact

>you for your address and then send you a check.

>

>Regards. Charles S Bailey General Manager Field Operations

> 1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-1085 or RNX 292-1085

>

>Thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after receiving this

>e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for my address and

>within days, I received a check for $24, 800.00. You need to respond

>before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this, Bill gates is

>the

>man.

>

>It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many

>people as possible. You are bound to get at least $10, 000.00

>We're not going to hel p them out with their e-mail beta test without

>getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in

>on this a few months ago. When I went to visit him for the Baylor/UT

>game, she showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and

>was stamped "Paid In Full".

I am currently filing for bankruptcy as a result of being assaulted at work in march and fighting workman's comp all this time. I need all the help I can get. Please give me details as I am living day to day and often skip meals so that my daughter can eat. I would be eternally grateful for anything that would even half that amount of money. I've been selling everything I can in an effort to pay my taxes for my house since the ones from January haven't even been paid yet and I just got the September bill.
Thank You,
Kim

I must have received this one a dozen times!. Always check www.snopes.com if you really feel something is worth forwarding and you aren't afraid of embarrassing yourself.

If the letter is from someone I know, I read it. Depending on it's informative value or if it's something I want to share, I forward bcc sending the original to myself. If necessary, I trim all former addressees and any information that is not pertinent to the message. However, most chain letters have no value for me and I just delete.
Normally, I would not do a reply to all, as I think there is usually no reason to send a mass reply. I would send bcc only to individuals who would need to receive a reply and again, address the original to myself.

I typically just delete them, after shaking my head. If they suggest you've got to send them back to the original sender to tell them you love them, I may take the time to reply, but I never forward such. Anything I do forward, jokes or other meaningful info, I delete all e-mail addresses attached before forwarding.

Dependent upon content, sometimes I will advise the sender that the information is erroneous. Sometimes I take the same approach Brian did, it's totally dependent upon whether the e-mail is something that's going to cause someone harm. Such as e-mail hoaxes suggesting you remove files from your computer that are harmless operating system files. As Brian did, I generally back it up with links to fact, supporting my claims that the original information was in error.

If the original sender takes offense, then I simply tell them they should do their homework before sending such goodies out. And, find some satisfaction in knowing that I have spared several folks on that mailing list the trouble incurred in such matters.

As has been suggested above, one should never send mass mailings, including everyone's e-mail address. Set up a dummy account to send to yourself, address it to "Friends", "Special Friends", "Folks I care about", "My Joke Mail List" or something, then load everyone you want to send to in BCC. If it's a select bunch of friends that you share everything with, setting up a mail group to send is fine, but I often find that we "all", as individuals, have different things that are kind of iffy in our respective lives, and that method will eventually cause you to step on someone's toes. Much easier to set them up in a folder, and include them individually in BCC than risk hurting a friend's feelings.

I also make a point of explaining these methods of mailing occasionally to those who have a bad habit of forwarding countless addresses, although it usually goes unheeded! And, I keep all of my security software up to date, knowing I'm on those folks mailing list! /o:?

I agree with the snopes post with one exception. Depending on what the material is I usually just reply to the sender and give them the option to send out a retraction. If the subject is something rather serious, like the ones that tell you to delete "virus" files off your computer, I will reply to all in the hopes that no one deletes critical files from their computer.

As mentioned in another post, I think most of the people sending out chain letters (like my daughter) are naive to the fallacies on the net and think they are doing everyone a favor. I do try to educate people like that, even when something comes from a trusted source you should always verify anything you are going to send out; use your head and don't perpetuate false information. If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't.

As for the people that send out the cutesy chainmails I simply let them know I don't want those types of email and ask them not to send them anymore. If they continue I simply delete them without reading knowing in my heart that person cares about me and is simply sharing in the way they think most appropriate. That might now always be true but it keeps me from getting angry at people I care about.

Guess that keeps your inbox empty. I suspect that you don't mark ALL your e-mails as spam. Glad I'm not in some of ya'lls address books. Those e-mails that state something is true-I check out at Snopes or Smoking Gun. Those that are bunk I trash, the others I forward to a few select people in my address book. For those e-mails that are wishing me a blessed day, sending me a prayer, telling me how much they care for me-of course I read them and send them back to whomever sent them to me plus I send them to others that I want to say the same thing to them. In these busy days where we are seperated by thousands of miles, forwarding a cute e-mail that says you are missed and loved is better hitting the delete button, in my book anyway!!

1. I inform friends I don't do chains. They rarely violate

2. I don't snopes anymore. I use to and inform them about the status but I don't care to help them along that way anymore. I classify them as new and unlearned in the ways of the internet. If it continues, I delete everything they send, unread

When I realize that someone (against my stated wishes) sends me a chain letter, I immediately delete it. I often send them a reminder that I do NOT forward any religious or any other tyoe of chain letter. all of my contacts have asked for this consideration. If a friend wants to send me a friendship letter & tell me that it is not necessary to forward it, unless I chose to, that is a different situation.

Chain letters are only one step above spam as far as unwanted mail and I are concerned. I like to think that my friends are mature, intelligent adults but some of them still forward this crap to me.

Make it stop! Make it stop!

Sometimes I will politely remind them to leave me off the chain mail list but I had one person go all crazy and get upset about it. So mostly I just see that "forward to x people" line and hit the delete button as fast as humanly possible.

And guess what? No fire and brimstone, bad luck of any of that. Why people fall for that malarkey is beyond me.

I reply to the sender with info I have on chainletters, ask them not to send any to me again, this works for most of them but with a few I have to resort to deleting them unread!

Cheers,

Rich

There are whole lot of curmudgeons out there!