Beware of Chain Mails

Most of the emails you get for a "worthy cause" originates from internet marketers or worse still spammers looking for genuine email addresses to send adverts and unsolicited mails (some sell the mailing list they so gather).

This is how it works. They send out a mail to say religious broadcast is about to be banned in the US, we need a ten thousand names to stop it (really!, including Nigerian names!), Ericsson wants to test a new phone about to be released, and will give you a new phone is you forward the mail to 20 people (give me a break!). Sweeter still, Bill Gates wants to run a beta test on emails, and will be giving away $20,000 if you send the mail to 30 people (whao!). The list goes on and on.

Stop for a moment and switch on your brain. How will forwarding a mail in Lagos stop a legislation in the US, a legislation that is so controversial, it is not carried on CNN or BBC. How can Ericsson run a secret test without announcing it on their website, same as Bill Gates? Think! Think

This is the real deal. A smart internet marketer is sitting in his bedroom flying the kite. He has written a smart program into the mail so that every email address you send it to, he is copied in the mail, which means tens of thousands of genuine email addresses are added to his mailing list while folks try to save the world or make a quick buck.

When it is all over, he packages his spanking new mailing list, and sells it on the internet to internet marketers, companies. spammers, 419ners, anybody who needs a genuine email list.

Have you ever wondered where unsolicited mails come from, how they got your email address? now you know.

Think twice before you forward that mail to save the world.