Death threats disguised as chain letters/emails

[mumnumberone]

I have just received an email from a friend containing some trite "advice" with the charming comment at the bottom that if I didn't forward it within 6 minutes I'll get a very unpleasant suprise.

I'm eight months pregnant, perhaps the nasty suprise will be some harm to my baby? Perhaps my toddler and husband will be involved in a car accident - thank you so much friend, you must really care about me.

Fortunately, I am not superstitious so have deleted the email and will not be losing any sleep, but cannot beleive women (as it always is women that seem to send these) can be so stupid and so thoughtless. I know some people really beleive and worry about this stuff and they only have their friends to thank.

Incidentally, this is the first email I've had from said friend in 6 months.

[pinklady5]

hi mummumberone, first of all congrats on new baby ,
i also hate receiving these silly email/texts , last year was in a very similar situation as you , a friend i hadn't spoken to in months sent me 1 of those by texts , i simply sent her a text message back saying that i really don't like receiving these type of things & in future would she please not pass them on to me , haven't received any nasty texts since just nice 1's . I'm sure if you asked your friend to not pass these things onto you she would understand .

[sandcastles]

[email protected]

send it to me & I'll bin it!

[mumnumberone]

Hello pinklady5,

You are right, I should just have the guts to say this sort of email isn't welcomed.

Just after I'd had my ist son another friend(who I assumed to be of reasonable intelligence) sent me an email saying that a US company would send $1 to help a burns victim in India for every person who received the email.
Do people think these things through? - how on earth could the company possibly know how many people received the email and even if it could why would this make it more likely to donate money? The worst bit was it included a horrible picture of a young child with burns - just what every mother wants to see.

[sandcastles]

Opps, sorry....somehow overlooked where you said you deleted it! All my friends send them onto me, as I don't take any notice & delete!

[burningupinspeed]

I'd have replied and told her what you told us. Silly cow (her, not you!)

My university tutor forwarded me a fecking chain email this week, I couldn't believe it, it was one of those 'X company will donate 5 cents to some dying little girl for everyone person this is forwarded to' - it has really altered my opinion of her.

[salbysea]

I hate these, not because of the content - am amazed that anyone would believe any of it for a second (but assume the sender did!), but just because its a waste or my time!

A friend has sent me lots of these and I just emailed her and said that I use my email address for important stuff and cannot have it filled up with chain letters - I would love to hear from her and would take time to to read a personal email about how she's doing, but if she keeps wasting my time with chain letters I would have to block her email address, which would be a shame.

[salbysea]

to me it is akin to signing someone up to a shed load of junk mail by regular post
annoying and a waste of time

[pinklady5]

some people are just naive , they send these daft emails/texts to any1 on their contacts lists without giving it a 2nd thought , a bit inconsiderate if you ask me considering you are pregnant & its an anxious time for you awaiting the arrival of baby no2 , glad you deleted the txt , dont give it another thought ,

[frazzledgirl]

What burningup said. V eloquent and should make her hang her head in shame.

[toddlerama]

YANBU. They are bloody ridiculous. I delete it without a thought when it comes from someone who might be naive enough to believe it, but when people I KNOW aren't stupid enough to buy into it forward them I do wonder why on earth they are wasting their time and mine.

[GentlyDidIt]

If some of the more deserving-looking ones (e.g. "IBM will donate $1 for every email forwarded to pay for

[smackapacka]

I HATE these type of chain letters. I asked one person to stop sending them to me and she did get arsey about it. It was those chinese horoscopes that do the rounds... And she sent it out saying 'sorry guys can't take any chances not passing this on'.

WTF????

I always ask what everyone did for good luck 30 years ago without all these wretched letters. The ones anout donating to sick children are dreadful. I can't believe people think that they work. If they did then sureley we should all get a progress report forwarded on to us about the treatment/cure of said child. Really poor taste. Bleugh.

[piscesmoon]

I hate them and just bin it or delete it. Don't let it worry you.

[cairnterrier]

Do you remember when it used to be chain letters (ie bits of paper in envelopes) that went around? I remember Philip Schofield and Andy Peters in the broom cupboard saying if you were scared then you could send them in to them and they would bin them.

(is there a showing my age emoticon). Funny the things you remember

[chegirl]

I hate these things. I particulary hate the ones about children with terminal cancer who will get 10 cents for every email forwarded.

They are bollox so why do people believe them.

They finish with wording like 'if you really CARE about children with cancer you will forward this to blah blah blah'

It makes be wonder what goes through the minds of the people on my address book when they send these to me. They know my DD died of cancer. Do they not THINK?

I hate the bloody trite 'you are one of my superangelwomenwindcarriers' sort of text message too. I delete them right away.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I have been known to send them back to the recipient with a message along the lines of 'Hello darling, check your email client for viruses cos either you've got one that's filling your address book with junk or someone's hacked your email and is sending out stuff that makes you look like a total twat.'

[JackBauer]

I tend to reply with a link to the snopes page saying it is all crap (mainly the 'women! Men are trying to gang rape you!' ones or the 5p per email ones.
They soon get the hint, espeically if you reply to all...

[chegirl]

Is that the site that investigates all these crap things? Do you have a link?

I am not usually po faced but I dont like people making stuff up about kids with cancer.

[Heated]

The maudlin religious ones are the absolute worst. Now that DH's christian aunt has discovered the Internet, I'm inundated!

[JackBauer]

Here you go
It does make amusing reading sometimes, honestly, the things some people believe.
What gets me are all the missing kids emails that are hoaxes, why woudl you bother?

[chegirl]

Thank you Jack. I am going to save it to favourites.

The stupid weird thing is that the people that forward these things, forward loads of them. So why dont they notice the gang rape, abduction, sick children ones are the same with some details changed? Do they really believe them and really think they are making some sort of difference by sending them?

Twonks

[SolidGoldBrass]

Look, an awful lot of people are both sentimental and stupid. That's why these wretched things are so popular.
(I once got into trouble for scribbling on one that was on an office notice board - 'This is an urban legend, please do not take any notice of it.')

[Cowwomanmoo]

Receive irritating txt messages from SIL regularly, last one was replied to with this: ?Error code 2367.Viral detected. Wiping SIM? She craped her self and rang around panicking like a loon, how I laughed and laughed. She has stopped sending them now.

[chegirl]

Brilliant cowwomanmoo tee hee.

[megapixels]

I hate these too. I got one of those 10p for a child with cancer ones which said if you don't forward this just remember that what goes around comes around . How anybody with half a brain cell can forward stuff like that, especially to a parent, is beyond me. The first thing I do when I see a "don't delete this email" with a threat attached my finger automatically clicks on delete.