e-mails asking for help for sick children, AOL gives 5 cents for every e-mail forwarded! Scam or no?

Question

I get a lot of these e-mails that ask me to forward the message to as many people as possible. Most of the times it's about a sick child where the parents can't pay for the treatment costs, and they claim that AOL, Verizon etc. gives them 5 cents for every forwarded e-mail. I wonder first of all how this would work?
I mean, what's in for AOL, Verizon etc. when someone forwards e-mails? Or is this a "phishing" trick?

Answer 1

Of course it is a scam. How are they going to know how many forwards there were? It's just spam.

Answer 2

(1) No legitimate companies or programs use, encourage, or support spam or pyramid/chains. These clearly jam the servers, and are discouraged in the industry for this reason, as well as for fraud prevention.

(2) If you have a question about a forward, please check at
http://www.snopes.com
which lists all the urban legends and email hoaxes. If it is false, inform the sender(s) and include the link to the snopes website. As more people remember to check on snopes first, this help cut down on the number of hoax emails in circulation.

Note: The only true email forwards I have received are:
(a) 1-800-FREE-411 is a free information/directory service based on paid ads
(b) You should not give personal or financial information over the phone to callers claiming to have a "warrant on you for an outstanding ticket," as this is not the proper procedure used and is clearly for fraudulent phishing scams.
All the rest have been false, but I use that as an opportunity to remind the senders to check on snopes.com before forwarding.

Also, the most dangerous scams are emails that ask you to click on links to update your financial or password account information. The worst phishing scams are copycats of ebay or paypal. So if you receive one, forward the entire email (do not click on any links or open any attachments) to the account for reporting fraudulent emails at the appropriate website. I think it is something like [e-mail] or [e-mail] etc.

Recently, there was an article on yahoo about spotting fake emails and some sites that provide helpful tips, and even practice tests to see if you can spot the fakes.

Answer 3

Not a scam, just a cruel joke & urban legend. Neither AOL, nor Verizon (or any other ISP) has any way of tracking the number of forwarded e-mails. It's a time-waster passed along by well-meaning but clueless people.

Answer 4

Just Spam. There is no way to track email forwards, and this scam has been around forever. It originally said something like "Microsoft" will pay the first 10,000 a $100 each in order to test their new "email tracking system"

Answer 5

It's a load of crap. Those companies have no way of tracking who forwards the emails. Don't forward it. You can check snopes.com to see what is real and what is not. But basically if you get an email asking you to forward it, then it should go directly into the trash. The only thing those emails do is waste Internet resources.

Answer 6

Scam. Report them to AOL and Verizon.

Answer 7

Scam. AOL isn't going to pay for you to send an email.

Answer 8

It's a trick.
The whole reason for those things is to plug up the mail server and phishing.

Answer 9

scam

Answer 10

phishing" trick