Ever received an e-mail message with the subject “Cookie Recipe from Woolies” or what about the email where the last graphic minutes of A330 Air France Flight 447 are recorded on a Casio Z750 and later retrieved from a memory stick? My favourite one is still the “Shark Attacking Helicopter”. It was even “nominated” by National Geographic for “photo of the year” in 2002.

Captured from a scene of the TV series, Lost

A composite of two different images

Both of the examples mentioned above are an email hoax. Internet hoaxes have been around for as long as I can remember. Aside from the ones mentioned above, there are countless others. Most hoaxes either contain fantastic imagery, or focus on bogus virus warnings, helping sick or dying children, contain urban legends, or offer ways to make easy money.

And let’s not forget the email messages that demand to be sent to hundreds of your closest friends lest the karmic or divine laws of retribution wreak havoc in your life.

All of these messages have one thing in common. They are untrue – fake, false, bogus, counterfeit, phony, a sham and spurious.

If you get an e-mail with something in it that sounds like it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Fantastic stories of giant creatures with supporting photographic evidence are usually creative fakes. Anyone who’s unhappy with a company’s products or services should address them via the correct customer-service channels and not via a chain mail to their friends and family. Most decent companies want to help their customers, not drive them away!

Before forwarding the message, take a moment to check-out any one of the following sites. They all offer credible and substantiated means to check the validity of the e-mail hoa-, er message!

{ 0 comments }