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Why do people send these stupid viral chain emails?

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My gripe is the way some people abuse email at work and send through this garbage.  It annoys me when I get email forwarded from people saying, "watch out for..." and lists some urban legend to watch out for.  Do these people have just tons of time on their hands or something?  And how hard is it to check on Google or whatever to see if it is true or not?

Most of these emails are designed to either trick you or worry you into sending it on to at least ten people.  Well hello?  Wake up with some common sense people, do you really think the world is going to end if you DO NOT forward this email on to everyone?

I made the mistake of telling this person at work (who has a very bad habit of sending everyone this kind of junk mail) that what she sent me was just a rumour, and she should check her facts first.  Well that was a mistake, she went absolutely ballistic at me for it.

Chain emails On top it all, this email was sent throughout the entire company.  Somehow or other I turned out to be the bad guy in all of this and I'm really at a loss for words to explain why.  I'm the one getting trash and when I say something about it, I get to take the flak for pointing out how silly it all is.

So my question, the next time I get some sappy friendship email or an "If you love God send this to 8 people" type of email from this person, do I ask her to stop forwarding this junk email or just take it to the boss and let him deal with her?

Do the smart thing and don't forward on these stupid hoax and chain emails, because everyone is surely fed up with them by now.  Now as to the malware and scams that are spread around by these things, that is another gripe entirely!

By: A disgruntled chain e-mail recipient


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Timelord

Timelord

I'm guessing that forwarding such e-mails is against company policy? If it happens again, take the matter further.
23/01/19 Timelord
2
anon

anon

MikeP, I am only repeating what I read on the internet somewhere.
I had alot of them which my security could not remove & in the course of finding out how to get rid of them I read that that is where they come from. If that is wrong I would not know!
It made sense to me because the people who start these things off must have something to gain or why would they bother? I do get sent alot of them.
23/07/08 anon
7
MikeP

MikeP

An email cannot 'contain a cookie'. A cookie is only stored when you go to a website,which you might do by clicking a link in an email, but you can control whether or not to accept cookies by changing the privacy settings on your web browser.
22/07/08 MikeP
-11
anon

anon

Have just discovered that most chain e-mails carry tracker cookies which can be a security problem so now I block all cookies except from sites I choose to allow.
I never forward them anyway as they are nearly all hoaxes or rumours.
22/07/08 anon
-6
Moffat

Moffat

Chain e-mails are a pain in the bum, but worse still are those phishing emails that are growing in popularity, or the ones that ask you to send money to Nigeria. As if we're going to fall for that one. Don't these people have anything better to do?
27/09/07 Moffat
-1
Daniel

Daniel

This issue really annoys me too because it jams up my inbox.
01/08/06 Daniel
-4
Matt

Matt

Chain e-mails, hoaxes and all that stuff are a feature of life these days. Live with it and do your best to avoid it. I generally junk any mail that I don't recognise or that has suspect subject line
25/04/06 Matt
-7
Dave Bridgen

Dave Bridgen

Yeah why do people do this? they must be bored or very stupid. Do you really think that your love life will increase 450 million % by sending this on?

Why cant people really just get a life?
18/04/06 Dave Bridgen
-28
The Knowlegable one

The Knowlegable one

Hell, don't you know HOW to use FILTERS??

There's also a program called 'Mailwasher' which can BOUNCE emails back to sender.

EASY really.
15/04/06 The Knowlegable one
-9

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