Old AOL Microsoft “forwarding email” hoax given the Facebook treatment
A social media message that claims Microsoft and AOL will pay Internet users money for forwarding an email is being circulated on Facebook.
The message can be seen below.
This was on the 9:00 o’clock news the other night and this works. THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY – IT IS FOR REALPLEEEEEEASE READ it was on the news!This thing is for real. Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their promises for fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (If you are a Microsoft Windows user)? For a two weeks time period.For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it
on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and ! for every third person that
receives it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft
will contact you for your address and then send you a check.RegardsCharles S Bailey General Manager Field Operations
1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-1085 or RNX
292-1085I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after receiving
this e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for my
address and within days, I receive a check for $24, 800.00. You need
to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this,
Bill gates is the man.It’s all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many
people as possible.
It’s a hoax. And an old one at that. The assertion that Internet companies are going to pay email recipients for forwarding an email to their friends is perhaps one of the oldest types of chain email hoaxes in the history of the Web, spreading between people well before the days of social media.
Bill Gates, Microsoft and AOL are all commonly quoted in these types of hoaxes, which are persistently being given digital face-lifts and once again getting set loose in the wild. And it’s clear that the above message is a rather old one. For one, it is imploring readers to forward emails, so why it’s being copied and pasted on Facebook by thousands of social media users is somewhat of a mystery.
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And the claim that AOL and Microsoft are trying to “make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program” is also another tell-tale sign of the hoax’s old age, given that Microsoft has now dropped Internet Explorer in favour of its latest browser Microsoft Edge.
Of course there are a number of other red flags that would clearly out this nonsense as, well, nonsense… but we’re not going to go into them here since we’ve debunked these kinds of hoaxes time and time again in the past.
No, you don’t get paid for forwarding emails or copying and pasting Facebook statuses. This is a hoax, from start to finish.
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