I heard a rumor...

So if you don’t already know it, not everything you see or hear on the Internet is on the up and up. There are a lot of bad things out there just like in the real world. I’ll get into some of the nastier stuff in a different area but right now what we are talking about is disinformation, urban legends, and the like. First off there are many other sites that do a much better job of and I list them at the bottom. This is more of a list of email rumors that have hit my personal attention either from friends, family, customers, or other associates.

Bottom line is knowing what an email urban legend is when you see one. First forget about who it came from, I once had a VP of marketing pass a message around with a really nasty virus in it. People are people so be aware. Most of these messages do not include references to reliable web sites, and do not include a full date (day month and year) or any other information to ground them. As a quick check Google the first few words of any claim and find out if is on any of the major disinformation sites. Do yourself a favor and don’t come across as someone that passes this kind of disinformation around.

Money From Microsoft giveaway hoax

One of many ebay scams

Your cell phone number is being given out to every telemarketer and you will charged for the calls!!! (false)

The major disinformation sites

http://urbanlegends.about.com

http://www.snopes.com

http://www.truthorfiction.com