Those e-mails that concerned friends pass on to you can cause some real alarm. Here’s how to check them out.
We’ve all had them, those doom-laden emails warning of this or that danger to your health, safety or finances.
For Example:
The one about the people lurking in supermarket and gas station car parks, offering cheap perfumes that knock you out when you take a sniff, and they then rob you while you’re unconscious, and goodness knows what else! False
The one about the Life is Beautiful Virus, which comes in an email and wipes out your PC if you open it is: False.
The Invitation/Olympic Torch/Merry Christmas virus, which supposedly burns your hard disc when you open it: False.
The one about callers posing as Visa and MasterCard fraud investigators and obtaining security details is: True.
How do I know all this? Whenever I get one of those alarming e-mails, and before I forward them to my nearest and dearest, I check with Snopes, a websites that verifies and explains the urban legends that clutter up our inboxes. It saves so much time and unnecessary worry.
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 am
Thanks Dee, this is great info.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:09 am
Thanks for this Dee, I get some of these emails myself.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:11 am
This is excellent advice, Dee. I laugh when I get a warning message that our banking account is in jeopardy, and the message supposedly comes from a bank or credit union with whom we never had financial dealings.