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Don't Fall for Chain Mail

For several years, I’ve been on mailing lists for both business and personal e-mails. Several friends e-mail me and 25 or 30 other people regularly with news of their goings-on, latest jokes, pictures or news items. I’ve learned some useful information such as emergency life saving tactics for heart attacks and first aid for drowning victims. In fact, I have been so impressed at times that I forward the mail to others who I thought should read it too. 

On occasion I’ve received an impressive chain letter that I’ve forwarded to my mailing group with the intention of doing a little good.  When I (and most people I know) forward e-mail I don’t ask for money, bank account numbers or anything in return. I do not make predictions, threaten, spam or incessantly keep sending mail day in and day out.

Nowadays, I’ve learned to drop chain e-mails in the trash before I finish reading them. What basically bothers me about these chain emails are two things: first, the time and resources that are lost in reading and sending these pointless emails; second, the nonsense that people swallow.

Ever get the one about 5 days to live if you don’t answer and forward it to 15 other people?  Or the one about sending $1 to each of the 20 attached names on the list and then waiting to cash in on the $240,000 when your name gets to the top of the list?

Who thinks these things up and how do they get addresses? It’s a shame that in our busy lives, we have to make time to read these senseless things. …”  People that send me these emails not only waste my time by filling my inbox with useless stuff, but they go on to promise me happiness and good luck (or threaten me!) to not break the chain.  

E-mail is one of the most used Internet tools, and it’s a real shame to fill it with trash. This is one of the main reasons why some companies limit internet access to employees, because instead of raising productivity, web hosting servers get loaded with trash.

If you too are annoyed by ridiculous e-mail chain letters, you can use the following answer, and maybe someone will get the idea:

“I just received your chain email.  Some 1,000 persons have sent me chain emails and every one of them gotten sick with the ‘Chain email curse’.  You will probably get sick too if you experience any of the following symptoms: 1) tiredness at night, 2) hunger just before eating, 3) inability to remember your car’s license plate number 4) stupidity.”

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