Stop! Don't Forward That Chain Letter! Debunk The Junk Message Board

You start your email program, open your email inbox and are bombarded with messages from friends and strangers alike, urgently telling you to do the most important thing in your life!...PASS IT ON! Why? Because the strangers are spammers and your friends were suckers for yet another chain letter! Aggravating, isn't it?
GotJunk.wav

This page is all about chain letter hoaxes and fwds of all kinds, what to do if you receive them, and contains a collection of resources to go to if you think you've gotten a chain letter. You may give this page's url and contents out to anyone who sends you forwards or might send out forwards. It's time we said enough with the emotional battery by spammers whose only interest is to collect our email addresses, and get us to pass on their junk! The hoax makers don't care a wit about children dying of cancer or the 9/11 tragedy, but they're counting on you to so they can make you feel bad enough or scared enough to pass on whatever lies they put into those chain letters. There are a few chain letters that were started with good intentions some where the author is pleased their words have been passed along. But there are many more that are bogus and claim to be written/said by specific kinds of people and weren't. Chain letters come in all types, including jokes, or, what's supposed to pass for a joke. The most recent to stink up my inbox, the Captain Underpants name Game has also been forwarded again and again over the years! I don't know why people insist on forwarding the same stupid jokes again and again! Come on, this one isn't even funny.

The Twelve Days of Forwards to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas is something I wrote after getting that Twelve Days of Christmas joke in my mailbox one year too many and two times too many this year...Within less than a week at that.

The first one was Rachel somebody writing to Dearest John about all her gifts he was sending, which were the gifts in the actual song. The second one, very same chain letter joke, only the names were Agnes and Alfred. The outcome and the things that happen along the way are for the most part, funny - if you're getting it for the first time. But after the 10th, it's not so funny any more. Besides, I've been getting more forwards again lately and it bugs me to no end.

Slow Dance Site owner Indianna takes on the sob story chain letter.

Indianna and the friendship chain letters.

Chain Letters and the Emotional Abuse they are Designed to Cause

Urban legends often play on our fears. Remember the stolen kidney story?

The truth behind that was that a guy did end up with a missing kidney. But that's the only part of the story which is true.

The full reality is that the kidney was not stolen. it was sold by the supposed victim of the story, for proffit. But it is illegal to sell human body parts, so this guy made up the story, claiming his kidney was stolen, all to cover up his illegal act.

But when a story is changed, it can take on a whole new meaning, designed to play on our most inate fears of injury, contamination, the unknown, anything.

Here is a link that deals with fear mongering in urban legends.
Fear Mongering

Hoaxes involving Emotional Battery and Blackmail

Have you ever received emails stating that a child is missing or dying, and you can save or help find them by passing on a chainletter?

You thought the child was the victim?

No.

The victim is you.

This is one of the most dirty plays on emotions when the story is not true. Take the Penny Brown story for instance. The chainletter is a picture that is supposed to be forwarded and passed on in the hopes that penny Brown will be found.

The trouble is, Penny Brown never existed. The following link explains why.
Penny Brown Is Missing

if you get any more of these sob stories about missing or dying people with an urgent statement to pass it on to everybody,

1. please see sites on hoax info and debunking before you do anything else. http://www.urbanlegends.com is a good one to start with.

here is a link that deals specifically with the letters about missing and dying people.
Sick, Dying & Missing Kids - Email Alerts, Chain Letters & Hoaxes

if you don't find anything on the specific story there, be persistant, and use a search engine for a keyword search. Google.com is a good one. if you key in "Penny Brown Hoax" including the quotation marks, your search will bring up sites dealing with the Penny Brown story specifically. Those sites usually have links back to their home indexes, where you can look around and bookmark the main site as well.

2. Bookmark the site or sites you find which confirms the story to be a sham.

3. send the sites debunking the story to whoever passed it on to you, and the other people your friend also mailed, if there is a group of addresses in the To: and Cc: fields of the message. Hopefully your friend, and those other people in their address list will keep the site on hand so the next time they receive a chainletter, they can send the site to whoever passed it on to them.

Newbies to the net really should receive this information so they won't be fooled or feel compelled to pass on these chainletters. But part of the reason they are still circulating is because there are always newcomers who don't know about the hoax debunking sites, or even that there are dying and missing child hoaxes out there. most of us are not that sick-minded, so we can't fathom the idea of somebody making up a story like that.

Unfortunately, there are in fact many cruel hoaxes out there, playing on our deepest emotions just to get us to pass along bogus stories. Some of the chainletters don't stop at the initial tug at our heartstrings, but compell us to forward the lie on by means of coercion, emotional abuse. the "You are a heartless, selfish person if you don't pass this letter on. If this child dies, the responsibility will be yours, because you were too uncaring to do something as simple as pass on a letter." I've seen chain letters that use this approach. It's disgusting, appalling, despicable. It takes a very coldblooded person to make up a heart-wrenching story about a dying child, pass it off as fact, then call others selfish for not passing it on. That is deplorable, and the best way to combat it is to always check hoax debunking sites to be sure it is a hoax. none of us should have to put up with emotional abuse and coercion from some anonymous coward who has nothing better to do than try to make us upset enough to pass on a lousy sob-story that isn't even true.

The hoax originators don't stop at trying to alarm the general public and tuggging at their heartstrings over something general, they are despicable enough to exploit real tragic events and use them for their own amusement! Believe it or not, there have been hoaxes ranging from virus warnings to fake prophesies concerning the Sept. 11 tragedy, what was said about it in the past, and what might still happen in the future if you don't: pass on some stupid chainletter and - follow any other ridiculous instructions in the chainletter. I don't know how people who make up these sick hoaxes can stand themselves.

When Bad Chain Letters Happen to Good People
It's appalling enough to think that people make up sad stories just to upset us enough to forward them as if they were real. But this link is very important, it describes what can happen when somebody maliciously spreads a sob story around that is not true, but the person with the victim's name is real. I hope whoever originated the false story about a real person in the above link gets a bad case of guilts and rots, because they've caused the real person with the name a lot of grief over the darn thing. Deplorable!

Warning signs that it is a chainletter hoax are

1. Urgent demands or pleas to pass it along to x number of people within x amount of time, forward to as many people as possible, pass it on to everyone you know or as many people as you can.

2. The stories are never first hand. no one personally knows the people the chain letter is about. Small wonder since they either don't exist, or their true story was distorted into a hoax.

3. They are always designed to get you by the emotions whether it's fear or sadness, or even outrage.

4. "This is not a chain letter." if you see that line, it most certainly is a chainletter. Claiming it isn't doesn't magically exempt it from being a chainletter any more than a murderer claiming he or she is not a criminal.

5. You have received the same letter from different sources, months apart. For example, the Penny Brown story where it was claimed she had gone missing for two weeks. The first copy you received in October of last year. But you received another copy six months later, claiming the same thing, that she has been missing for two weeks. The cretins and liars behind these pitiful hoaxes don't count on some of us keeping track.

6. you receive the same letter from different people, and the only difference between the two copies are the fictitious names given to the people you're supposed to feel sorry enough for to pass on the letter. the dying child is called Jessica Mydek, or Rachel Arlington, but otherwise, the letters are exactly the same. Sounds more like she's suffering from an identity crisis rather than cancer.

7. Forwarding an email will not cause money to be sent to any organization. Furthermore, if you are instructed to mail a copy of the chainletter to an address specified in the chainletter, that address is probably a site for collecting email addresses off the internet and put them on junkmail recipiant lists. So if you forward the chainletter to your friends *and* send a copy to the address the letter tells you to besides, you are inviting junkmailers to send you still more junk.

Think you're the only one who's had it to no end with email forwards? You're not alone.

Hoaxes and Scams
Rage Against the Forwards!
I hate forwards!
Oh, No, Not Another Forward!

To lighten it up now that the serious stuff is out of the way, here is some urban legend humor!

Stop Forwarding Emails - Save Lives!
Lady Une's Urban Legendary Experience

-Indianna

Hoax Information Sites

Chain Letters and the Emotional Abuse they are Designed to Cause