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Dont Be A Part Of The Chain Gang, Avoid Those Chain Letter Scams (550)One of the most famous chain letters came in 1997. Millions of people opened up their mail to find a letter from Microsoft. The letter said word to the effect of, sending this letter on will make you money. For every person you send it to you get x amount and every person they forward it to you get a further amount. They also sweetened the deal by saying the average payout was several thousand dollars. Millions of people sent the message on, sat back and waited for their checks. Much to their surprise, the checks never arrived. This went down in history as one of the biggest email scams ever. It also spawned many copycat schemes that people still continue to fall for.
Most of the chain letters are fairly harmless.
However, there are a few out there that target the vulnerable. Many people report receiving letters from an off shore company stating that you have been chosen to participate in various investment schemes. Some claim there is a huge amount of unclaimed money and with your help you can gain a piece of the action. All you have to do is send in your bank details so they can transfer the money. Some who do this get a nasty surprise. They wake up not to find that they are suddenly millions of dollars richer but that their accounts have been cleaned out.
Other chain letters prey on the emotions of others. How many times have you opened an email with a touching story attached? Some child is suffering from some horrible disease and if you send this letter on some charity will donate money for each time it is opened. Most of the time these are scams and completely fraudulent. There have also been cases where these where practical jokes played on an innocent person. A young mans name was used in one of these chain letter scams. His local community rallied around but his family received the blame when the scam was uncovered.
There are also a series of chain letters that supposedly come from companies offering anything from free items, coupons or money off of goods. All you need to do is send the offer on to other people. Most companies do not operate in this way. They get their own mailing lists and send on themselves. Dont expect that free gift, it just wont come.
There are a few rules when dealing with chain letters. First of all, you will not get something for nothing. If you receive something from a company offering free items or money off, check to see if there is some kind of claim code. If there isnt then disregard it. Many companies frequently mail out Internet coupon but they are tracked. They also dont require you to send on information to anyone else.
Second, never give any personal detail if you should respond or forward a chain letter. Please for help in moving large sums of money are undoubtedly completely bogus. By giving you bank details youre inviting your self to get ripped off. The best thing to do is to delete it and report it to the police.
Finally, charities rarely operate in this way. If they have a fundraiser, it usually involves collecting something or a type of event. Check to see the name of the charity and do a check. Dont be surprised if it doesnt exist. If it seems to be a legitimate charity, call them up and ask them. If it is a legitimate scheme they will know, if not they will tell you.
You all get these chain letters from time to time. Most of the time they are just Internet junk mail. The best thing you can do is deleting them. Dont send anything on to anyone else unless you know it is legitimate. Dont worry about depriving some sick child of charity funds or missing out on million dollar opportunities, this just doesnt happen. |
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