I received an email from my friend in which a couple's daughter is in hospital and they needed money for the operation and they mentioned that AOL and ZDNET in Zimbabwe have agreed to help them and the only way that they can help is the receiver of the mail should forward it to at least three people and finally they will track how many people get it. My question is, how come these companies will gather money and try to help the couple, and how come opening a mail on the net informs them?

zbeckabee

This, my dear, is called a HOAX: http://www.f-secure.com/hoaxes/cancercl.shtml Feb 14 08, 8:38 AM

Baloo55th

ANY email requesting money or offering money is a scam unless you know the people sending it. No internet company like AOL gets involved with anything like this; no money is stashed in a bank in Nigeria or the Ivory Coast waiting to be claimed; no company doing international business needs to use your bank account to transfer its funds; no blonde has seen your picture and wants to chat; no child is wanting to get into the Guinness Book of Records by getting the highest number of emails; you are not the lost heir to a title and fortune; and you should not send money to register your claim to a prize you have won, especially when you never entered the competition (or even heard of it) in the first place. Emails asking you to forward them to 10 people should be ignored - they are chain letters. Emails warning you about the dreadful virus that CNN and McAfee have been warning about: please pass word back to the sender that all of these are hoaxes - and ask them to pass word back. Otherwise - ignore. Any questions, please feel free to ask me. GingeryNutt and I have been trying to get word round about all this junk for years. By the way, the scammers do get money. We have been dealing with a case (snail mail not computer) of an old person who sent money running into thousands to bogus competitions, astrologers and gawd-knows what else. Most people would take one look and bin it. There are those that fall. Please help to stamp it all out. Every little bit helps. Feb 14 08, 3:01 PM