I am getting far too many virus warning emails and scam chain letters in my email inbox and there’s obviously a lot of well meaning people out there who think they are trying to help, but who don’t really understand the impact of passing these messages on. Feel free to ignore this post if you are already aware of this issue, but I thought I would take the opportunity to explain why you should NEVER pass on an email that specifically asks you to.
1. It’s a hoax. It doesn’t matter what the warning or content of the message is, the goal is to get you to pass on the email.
2. Most of the heartwrenching stories about sick children are completely untrue and many have used the names of real charities, resulting in those charities having to dedicate precious resources to dealing with the resulting problems.
3. You actually increase the risk of real viruses getting through to everyone you pass these email messages on to – a real virus will often try to send itself to every email address it encounters on someone’s computer. You send a warning email to me and my email address is then present on all the computers of all the people you passed this email on to. So is yours!
4. Unless you used a private emailing method, when you pass on these emails, it’s likely you’re sharing private email data without permission and that could land you in various kinds of trouble.
5. Some people have bandwith limits with their ISP and this kind of thing clogs up their email inbox, preventing real and important messages getting through
There are websites where you can check out the details of such messages if you’re worried, and you should always check for yourself before sending it to anyone, even if it says in the message content that it is verified by a genuine hoax checking site.
Here’s a few websites that we use to check out anything like this:
www.snopes.com
www.virusbtn.com
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo
www.scambusters.org
And here’s a little of what the Virus Bulletin website has to say on the subject:
Chain letters are all too familiar to most email users. Emails instructing recipients to ‘forward to 10 other people’, or even ‘forward to everyone you know’, have been circulating since the early days of the internet. Many of them are little changed since that time, while some introduce new themes and fresh topics.
Some carry serious messages and tragic stories, often accompanied by improbable claims that money will somehow be raised for the subject of the story, courtesy of some kind philanthropist or corporation. Some promise incredible rewards for those who pass on the message. Some feature full-blown scams, instructing recipients to pass on personal data or even cash as part of the process. Others spread unlikely urban myths and hoaxes, many of which have featured computer viruses.
The common attribute of all these emails is the appeal to forward the message to many people. However, such an action – no matter how well-meaning – is not helpful. Aside from the increased network load, adding to the flooding of inboxes with unwanted spam email, another unwanted consequence is the forwarding of large numbers of email addresses, thanks to the common use of simple forwarding and cc features. Some chain letters may have been set up for the very purpose of gathering email data in this way, for use in spamming. Another result is that the hoax becomes ‘well known’ and listed on pages such as these. This fame (of sorts) no doubt leads to some degree of satisfaction for the hoax perpetrator, encouraging them to continue spreading such dubious chain mails.
Now, if you have read all that and are now cringing with embarrassment because you have sent on something like this, don’t worry. I know that they are sent with good intent and I hold my hand up and admit that years ago, before I knew better, I too forwarded messages like this to my friends thinking that they would be grateful. If you’re fairly new to the Internet or to using email, how are you supposed to know about these things if no one tells you?
Hopefully this information will go a little way to keeping all of our inboxes less cluttered and our hard disks less vulnerable. I shall get down off the cyber-soapbox now and go back to my UTEE …
Thanks so much for this Glenda. I constantly get emails from friends asking me to pass whatever on to 10 friends. I have always felt guilty for not doing this as I had my suspicions. Now I know I was right never to do it!
Glad you highlighted this – it is an extremely frustrating problem. I do exactly what Glenda does (except I mainly use Hoax Slayer: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/) for the relevant info & pass it onto the forwarder and I do get less emails than I used to.
Most times I actually look at my EMail In Box at the Internet provider’s end rather than downloading everything straight to my In Box because I can delete the Spam and the dubious “Warning – worst virus ever” type of emails at the IP’s end & not open them at all – so I can then only download what I want. 99% of the time, the subject line is a dead-giveaway of it being a dubious email. Just another way of doing it (here in Australia anyway).
Good for you for highlighting this Glenda. I used to always send the link to the relevant snopes page for every email like this that I got, but my friends paid no attention and still forward them- whether through naievety, laziness or superstitiousness I will never know! I hope the message gets through to people one day!
Well done you, for posting this Glenda, although I wish it weren’t necessary! And for giving the checklist of ‘checking sites’.
Like you, I’ve always been concerned at my email address being ‘listed’ because others don’t realise what happens when they send a warning email, so I really hope others will read this. I think you’ve done a real service by addressing this problem, as people DO respect & look up to you. THANK YOU
Jackie x
I would also like to say well said Glenda, unfortunately I have already been a victim of those pesky viruses! The bill for getting my computer cleaned up just before xmas was really not needed!
Thank you Glenda, you have given me the information I needed to send to a very well meaning friend, who insists on forwarding these emails. I have recently been bombarded with phishing emails and couldn’t work out why they were targeting me, thought it was normal and just deleted them immediately. Now I think I’ve more of an idea where they are coming from! I have sent her the information you so kindly supplied!
Thanks for the links. I have to admit if I get emails from anyone or a company I have not subscribed to then they tend to get deleted. My tip is always do your security updates before you go on to the open internet. I used to do this religiously and all was well, when I stopped doing this I got a virus. It takes a little time but it means that your security system will be aware of all the lastest threats going round. It’s worth a few minutes of your time rather than loosing your machine for days if it gets a virus.
Be cautious of clicking links in emails especially if they are from unknown sources. DH always tells me to type in the address rather than following a link, clicking links is one way the virus can get activated :0
Billie
I like to think constant vigilance on such irritating emails keeps my ‘puter secure, hence safe when sending emails to others. I don’t mind such a reminder Glenda, in fact, am thankful. There’s a plethora of these ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ emails, especially over the holidays, when the perpetrators have idle time to spend creating them. It’s worth taking a moment before opening/forwarding these emails, as the clean up afterwards can either be hours, days or saying byesy-bye to the computer. Thanks again
Well said Glenda! Far to many internet users are unaware of the true nature of these types of mails. I, like you, used to take them seriously – especially the virus warning type ones and I passed them one. Now I simply delete them, or if it’s a virus warning I check it out first for myself by vising sites such as Symantec or McAfee to see if I can find confirmation – and if I do then most of information simply confirms that the mail is a hoax mail so then I bin it.
Ouch …..i send on these emails,i have a friend that sends these cute emails to me so i pass them on BUT no longer will i be doing this.Thanx for the warnings xx jo xx
I recently got one of these mails passed on by a friend. She hadn’t really read it properly but because it ‘sounded nice’ and she is a lovely person, she wanted to share it with her friends. I had to e mail her back and explain that I NEVER pass on these mails and that the one she had sent was full of implied ‘threats’ to anyone who deleted the message. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but my friend took it in the spirit it was intended and hopefully she will read the content of any future ‘chain’ letters a lot more carefully. I hate the way these mails play on your compassion etc. so thank you Glenda for posting this warning. We can all do with a reminder every so often.
Glenda, thank you sooooo much for posting this. It “does my head in” when I get these sort of e-mails in my inbox.
I shall pass what you have said onto others and lets hope can curb it – even if just by a little bit.
Well said Glenda. It’s worth mentioning that many of the chain-type emails implore people not to break the chain for the particular ‘worthy cause’. No matter how guilty one feels, DO BREAK THE CHAIN and delete the mail for all the reasons Glenda has stated in her post.
I, for one, can only say thanks for putting this information on your blog Glenda, because, as you know, I was recently a victim of this sort of thing and it resulted in everyone in my email addresses being bombarded with spam not to mention my computer being totally messed up. I am lucky in that I have a good IT person who does not charge me the earth to put things right, but it did cost me some money and I also had the inconvenience of my computer acting very strangely for several days and then being without it for 2 days.
I don’t know if I’ve had the same as you Glenda but when I checked my other email address tonight I had about 8 ‘messages’ in my junk box and they were so obviously just that. I disposed of them immediately.