Strange mess...?

Question

I received a mess said that there is a young mom whose daughter got cancer. And she needs help, the mess asked me send this mess to my friends. Each of mess she will recevie 0.5 cent from Yahoo. It is true? Or just a trick?

Answer 1

Yes, this is a common myth with variations, some involving Bill Gates or other well known companies supposedly giving donations. Nobody is encouraging or using spam; I understand it is mainly used maliciously by competitors trying to crash a server.

Whenever you receive a forward, check on http://www.snopes.com or search for "snopes" and a description of the email topic.

The only valid forwards I have received:
(1) 1-800-FREE-411 is a free information service with ads
(2) Do not give personal ID or information over the phone to anyone calling who claims to have a warrant out for an outstanding ticket. this is not the correct procedure and someone is phishing to commit identity theft

Important Note:
The most dangerous fake emails appear to be from ebay, paypal, banks or other websites asking you to reply to a message or clarify a breach to your account.

Always forward these to whatever dept at the company screens and tracks these fraudulent phishing attempts (it is usually a special email account like [e-mail] or [e-mail] that sends you an email warning if the forward is fake or not). Do not open attachments and do not click on any links. Who knows if you could download something onto your computer that records your private transactions.

NEVER click on links in your email to access sites requiring your personal passwords, codes, SSN or credit card information.
These fake emails link to fake sites that store your information to commit identity theft.

Those are the only dangerous forwards (attachments or links).
The rest just look up on Snopes. Also, ask the person who sent it to you, to start checking Snopes before they forward another fake email to anyone else. Otherwise, you jam the servers with nothing but junk. http://www.snopes.com

Answer 2

It's an urban legend. That e-mail, or some version of it, has been going around for years. Sometimes it says MSN will donate, sometimes it says AOL and apparently now it says Yahoo.

It's bogus. I delete virtually everything that I'm asked to forward. The exceptions are when I get a really really funny joke or an inspirational message (that doesn't claim to be for the benefit of someone else).

When you have questions like this, there's a great site called http://www.snopes.com It's an urban legend debunking site. You can click on the link titled "inbox" (I think) and it gives you all the main e-mails going around and tells you if they're bunk or not.

I mean think about it - a) how would yahoo know how many were being sent (because not everyone uses Yahoo, and even if they did, they'd have to be monitoring your messages and what they said, and b) what would make this one cancer-stricken child worthy of Yahoo's attention? Why wouldn't Yahoo do this for other sick kids?

When Yahoo makes donations, they do it to established charities, not to individuals.

Answer 3

A couple good websites to go to check out this type of message are www.truthorfiction.com and www.snopes.com. There really is no way for a company such as Yahoo to track e-mails. This type of request, especially if it doesn't contain any specifics such as a date, name, contact person's e-mail or address are nearly always spoofs with no validity to them.

Answer 4

Most of the time things like that are just tricks. I have recieved hundreds of these and never heard anything back from them. Be careful when opening them. Sometimes they can contain viruses.

Answer 5

It's a scam, one of thousands of the same type. The basic idea is to gather the email addresses of bleeding hearts, so they can be sent all sorts of spam.

Answer 6

A trick.

Answer 7

it's not true.

Answer 8

yes ited is TRue!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!