Why does it seem like people are continually forwarding me email hoaxes? I nearly always respond with a snopes.com link. Some of these are years old - it's amazing that people still buy into them. Here are a few of my (least) favorites.
- Don't put plastic in the microwave! OMG! It releases dioxins into your food and gives you cancer! Give me a break. This one has been around since 2002 and I just got another copy forwarded to me recently. After this email was for years attributed to Johns Hopkins Hospital, they specifically came out with an article refuting it.
- Don't use your cell phone while pumping gas! Or you could blow up! This one has gotten so bad that there are actually warning labels on many of the gas pumps that I see around here telling people not to use their cell phones. Mythbusters covered this. The cell phone did nothing.
- Don't buy gas on a certain day - it will hurt the gas companies and prices will drop - I remember the first time I got this one, back in the nineties. Sounded like a great idea. Except that even if everyone participated, everyone who would've bought gas on that day will just buy it the day before or the day after. Hmm...
- These cute puppies are going to be put to sleep unless we can find them a home! - I can't imagine that cute free puppies will ever have much trouble finding a home. To that end, no animal shelter would put them to sleep, since they would know this. This one has been reborn more times than I can count, and all it ever does is flood some poor sap's phone with calls.
- Forward this email enough and Bill Gates will send you dump trucks full of cash! - this is a really old one. I didn't even believe this one the first time I got it.
- Please help me transfer my millions of dollars into your bank account - Further more, I am professor bob, the Sports Auditor General, Sport Complex from the University of Benin. Yeah right. This guy is from Nigeria, and this is called a 4-1-9 scam, named after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes. I get these all the time. People have lost their life savings to these. Somehow, it makes me think of the EBay Powerbook Prank. I highly recommend that read to anyone who's got 20 minutes to spend reading it.