17 replies to this topic

[mykokology]

Today I got an email from a friend that says I will earn money if I forward it to others. Here is the exact message:

Quote

Dear Friends,
Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is 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 week 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 week! s, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.

Regards.
Charles S. Bailey
General Manager Field Operations
1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-245-1085 or RNX 292-1085
Charles_Bailey@csx.com

I 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 cheque for US$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 US$10, 000.00.
We're not going to help 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".

Like I said before, I know the law, and this is for real

Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would make them the largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that AOL remains the most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.



When you forward this e-mail to friends, I! ntel can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.



For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $203.15.
For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $156.29
And for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $17.65.
Within two weeks, Intel will contact you for your address and then send you a check.
I thought this was a scam myself, but a friend of my good friend's Aunt Patricia, who works at Intel, actually got a check of $4,54323 by forwarding this e-mail.

Try it; what have you got to lose????

Suresh ,
Windows XP Support - Research Team

What do you think? Is this for real?

[Florisjuh]

Looks like an all-round hoax... There are much better ways to advertise then to give out heaps of money for people forwarding messages, Microsoft already has hotmail which counts for about 15 (If not much more) percent of the mail world anyway.

[knowlege pool]

Hi there,

I don't think this was even a right place to display this topic. It will only help the cause of the spammers. This is what they want to spread and block the bandwidth.

Do you think that talent pool all across the globe had dried up for microsoft to start a spam like this.

Money is earned and not looted like this. You start a conversation with GOD , MONEY Or SEX and you become a talking attention.

This is what spammers use to their advantage. They send a mail taking about making fortune by few clicks and there will be hoards of people following it. They fail to understand that even bill Gates has earned each of his penny . Every one wants to be as rich as him but no-one wants to work tenth as hard he has.

Knowlege Pool

[calkid]

mykokology, on Nov 11 2005, 06:46 AM, said:

Today I got an email from a friend that says I will earn money if I forward it to others. Here is the exact message:
What do you think? Is this for real?

what do i have to lose??? well if i believed in that letter i just saw, i would have everything to lose. that same letter was used 10 years ago. it's a chain letter. the only difference between this one and a typical chain letter is that you aren't going to have bad luck, and you aren't going to make any money. it was though. a successfull attempt to see how gullible people were. i think when i first saw this letter, microsoft stock was at $1..... now THAT is something i regret not buying!

[calkid]

knowlege pool, on Nov 11 2005, 01:17 PM, said:

They fail to understand that even bill Gates has earned each of his penny . Every one wants to be as rich as him but no-one wants to work tenth as hard he has.

Knowlege Pool

bill gates never earned each of his pennies. he had volunteer hackers to do most of his work and then paid them off handsomely after taking all the credit. now that he has money, he buys up all his competition and reaps the rewards...excuse me....MICROSFT does this. billy hides behind the corporation so he's not the one losing millions. the stock holders are.

[heavensounds]

Weel I think this is a bunch of crap, because if you think a little bit....everything today goes in a way of preventing others to see any information that has something to do with you...now tell me how is microsoft about to find out TO WHO THEY SHOULD SELL MONEY??

This is why it is impossible...you could make 10000 email adresses and forward this from on to the other and earn millions of dollars...

People just hink before you do something with mail or anything else on the computer!

greetz

[sharpz]

do you honestly believe this rediculous email? i could easily fake the exact same thing and send it to you, and apparently you would believe it. You might want to verify things in the future before you fall pray to marketing scams (*cough* netbux *cough* ) if no one has heard of netbux, it was a giant scam that 'payed you' for searching, but ended up not paying up and the owner of the site fled.

[knowlege pool]

calkid, on Nov 17 2005, 12:08 PM, said:

bill gates never earned each of his pennies. he had volunteer hackers to do most of his work and then paid them off handsomely after taking all the credit. now that he has money, he buys up all his competition and reaps the rewards...excuse me....MICROSFT does this. billy hides behind the corporation so he's not the one losing millions. the stock holders are.

my dear friend

I would like to clarify few things

1)when you say you earned every penny doen't mean that you have earned it yourself literaly. It meands that you have worked out , plan get it executed by your staff, workers and stakeholders.

2)now coming your point about hackers . I don't understand your logic behind saying so. You can't call any one hacker just if someone paying them to work for him. A team works and captain get the credit as he gets the team moving.

3) And last, aquasitions and mergers are the part of business game plan. Buying competition is not bad (someone in the first point is selling it) for making your company large and the biggest in its field.

all this was taking us away from the topic of free online money. Again it seems you have build in a certain mental block about microsoft. Without even acertaing that thjis mail is a hoax or real you have jumed to a comclusion saying he is not loosing any thing the stockholders are.

I think you skipped that Bill Gates himself own all his fortune bythe virtue of being one of the biggest stakeholder(shareholder) in the company. So any think which goes against shareholders in general goes against him also.

[Spectre]

*Sigh. Thanks to gullible people, vast numbers of networks have been shut down due to the forwarding hoax emails causing traffic to block up. No offense intended - it's in our nature to be optimistic, and wanting to believe what people say comes with that. Falling for 'pranks', 'hoaxes', etc. happens to the best of us.

But there is no way this is going to happen. Neither Microsoft nor AOL (or joint efforts) can track every email on the Internet. Whilst in theory, AOL would be able to track emails sent through their servers (and knowing their privacy practices - or rather, the lack there of - they may well), it is not possible for anyone one company to track every email floating around the Internet. If - and only if - one single body had an undisputed monopoly on mail servers with literally no other competition, then it might be possible. But as email passes through any given number of servers to reach its destination, it's impossible to track it unless it passes through a server operated by the tracker.

I would advise that you simply delete any emails that urge you to forward them on to others. If they are genuine, then they don't need to try and convince you to send them to other people. There are millions of 'chain' letters floating around - both in electronic and physical form - and they are usually started by someone who has little else to do and would like to see how far their hoax can spread. Any message following the line of 'Forward this to all your friends / x amount of people / everyone and something good will happen to you' are almost definately rubbish, and should be ignored. Helping them propagate is just helping the idiot who started it.

And now, onto the logic. Just pretend that part of the email was true, and Microsoft and AOL had teamed up to pay you money just because they have it (and, let's face it, they are known for their generosity and tendancies to throw all their money at people). Microsoft is obviously nothing short of an empire, and the Time/Warner/AOL group follows pretty closely. Being such enourmous and wealthy corporations, don't you think they would have ways of publicizing their events other than sending unsolicited email to random people, promising them that riches will follow if they help 'spread the word'?

[mama_soap]

Well, looks like Spectre has covered everything that there is to it. A good rule of thumb (apart from checking if the mail asks you to forward it to x people or else... <something nasty> will happen to you) is simply that if any mail begins with the sentence Please do not take this for a junk letter., it is almost certainly bound to be a junk letter. I wouldn't even bother to read any further

In most circumstances, common sense should help in seeing your way through the scams. May the anti-spam engines be with you