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Scams, hoaxes and urban legends which previously relied on word of mouth and snail mail to get around, have now found a new mode of transport: email. Email allows these false messages to travel faster and more prolifically than ever before.
Quite often scams, hoaxes, and urban legends appear harmless and even humorous. And while for the most part they are, these messages also help choke up the Internet and make it slower, and contribute to the phenomenon of normally rational and sane people tearing their hair out. It becomes frustrating to receive these messages after a while, as they take up room in your email letterbox and deleting them takes up your valuable time (one learns not to even open the message, let alone read it, very quickly). It can also make the sender look a little foolish to be passing these messages on in the belief that they are factual. There are many classic scams, hoaxes and urban legends. The chain letter, where you are asked to send the message on to a certain number of friends, is very common. So too is the virus warning. The majority of virus warnings received via email are hoaxes. Another common one is a plea to help a dying child by signing the email and forwarding it on. The child is then supposed to receive ten cents for every person the email is forwarded to. This one is definitely not true, as there is no way to keep track of how many people have been forwarded an email. Urban legends also feature prominently in email messages. For example, a common one a few years ago warned of becoming a victim of the black market for kidneys. A person went to a party, was drugged and woke up in a bathtub full of ice. Written across their chest was the warning to call 000, and not move from the bathtub, because one of their kidneys had been harvested. Interestingly enough, these things never happen to the person writing the email, but always to a friend of a friend of a friend! For general interest, and also to help you avoid looking silly when you send these messages on, why not check out the following web sites and find out whether it is a known scam, hoax or urban legend before you hit that send button.
The Urban Legends Reference Pages |
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Bundaberg Regional Library Service 2002-2009 Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia Internet Librarian: email here |