Chain e-mails

Ok - I get a lot of e-mails from my contacts and it's like 99.9% of them are chain e-mails.

Some of them seem real. I get e-mails like stuff abt ppl dying of cancer and we if we fw it, 3 cents are fw'd so they can have surgeries to save their lives or something. Being a very soft person, I am stupid enough to believe it and I fw it.

I told my teacher about it. She told me its a lie. But it seems sooooo real.

Are these kind of chain e-mails for real? Or are they big hoaxes? 😕

Your opinions please!

One of my favourite bashing topics!

I detest chain mails - useless junk which clutters up your inbox and NONE of it is true.

I had written an article about it for a newspaper a few years ago. Since my sentiments are still the same, I'm just reposting it here:

Fwd To: chain_letters@trash.com

In this age having an e-mail address is almost as normal as breathing. Many of us log on at least once in a week to clear out all the spam and yes, even forwarded messages. The concept of forwarded messages is pretty simple. You read something and you like it so you want to share it with all of your friends. Now, I have nothing against forwarded messages; I send them too.

The messages that really bug me are chain letters. Yeah, the ones which curse you with bad luck for the rest of your life if you don't send them to everyone in your address book. Majority of the time the message doesn't even sound authentic. It's full of typos, grammatical errors and totally illogical.

Some of you may be thinking, so what, we know all that. Can't you take a joke? And I say, sure. Most chain letters are laughable. But, there are people who are superstitious. In fact, sometimes these people send multiple copies of the same message, which is not funny at all. A friend of mine is famous for sending chain mails. In the beginning, I used to just ignore it and delete the messages. Then one day, I got a chain letter from more than ten people, which filled my mailbox to its maximum limit. I was seriously annoyed.

The letter did have a macabre picture of a corpse, but I'd seen worse in horror movies. The curse was to send the message to everyone on your address book or the spirit of the corpse would haunt me for the rest of my life. I swear, wouldn't a ghost have a life? So I deleted it without forwarding it to anyone and slept like a log that night. Just as I thought, the ghost had better things to do than hound teenagers who don't forward messages.

Another common chain letter is an "Administrative message" from the Hotmail staff to those of us who have accounts on MSN. The Hotmail staff member warns you to forward the message to all other hotmail users on your list. If you fail to do so, your account will be deleted the next day.

First things first, why are there spelling mistakes in the message? Secondly, doesn't Hotmail have a "master address" through which every user with an account is automatically notified about updates? Thirdly, if all Hotmail accounts were to be shut down, wouldn't there be enough chaos to generate an article in the newspaper about it?

I bet some of you are yawning by now and thinking, what's the point of all of this. The point is that an important message may not reach your Inbox because it is cluttered with forwarded messages. The point is that you may be scaring your more superstitious friends for no reason. The point is that you are adding to the junk in your friend's Inbox. In short, quit sending chain mails. Get a life.

Tanaz di that article was very very well written! 👏 😃

I detest chain mails too...though i do admit that out of fear i did use to pass those curse wali mails around a few years back , but now they directly go to the trash bin! 😃

In the words of Mrs. Eishu, 'Tanaz that article was very very well written.'

Why do ppl want to send chain mails anyway?

Has this topic been repeated already?

Very nice article Tanaz. But i always wanted some well written article that i could send to my friends who are famous for forwards. I'd like them to know i delete their fwd mails along with my junk mails without opening them. I nead to do so in a polite way . Now how do i do that ??? 😛

👏👏........Great job Tanaz... its fabulous... im tooooooooo tired of all that cursing, junk stuff and "used" to think it is true... now i just read the mail "Sometimes" if i know the sender's brain working mechanism is bearable !😆 otherwise the best place for such a mail is "Trash bin" 😆

Originally posted by: Aparna_BD

Very nice article Tanaz. But i always wanted some well written article that i could send to my friends who are famous for forwards. I'd like them to know i delete their fwd mails along with my junk mails without opening them. I nead to do so in a polite way . Now how do i do that ??? 😛

I ask that question too 😳.. but here is a suggestion also😛. Why don't we copy Tanaz's article and forward it to our "Forwarding friends" !!!😆!😆😆Wht say Tanaz??😉😉

Lol. You're funny MNMS (Sorry dunno your real name)

😆 Thanks. 😳

You can forward the article if you want. But, that's the extent of my "politeness" for Chain Mail fwders.

A friend of mine sent me a very funny piece about chain mailers, but it was damn rude - I had to check my fwd list to make sure I was not sending it to more "sensitive" or "young" readers!

I'll have to see if there are "kinder" articles on this subject. 😆 😆