Thanks to KellyDD, a local Bay Area provider, I found out that cell phone numbers are going to be released to telemarketing companies starting tomorrow. If you answer, you will be charged. So go to http://donotcall.gov/ and register your number(s) to avoid this.
Any time you hear news like this in an e-mail, or by word-of-mouth, ask yourself a quick question: why did I not hear about this through a newspaper or mainstream news?
Then, go to snopes dot com, or any of several other online scam, hoax, and myth-busting websites to see if there is any truth to your story before you jump in and spread the panic...
by the way - bill gates is not now (nor has he ever) given away a nickel to anybody to "beta test" his new e-mail program. If you think that you are going to get a big fat check in the mail for clicking the "forward" button, you are a sad little person. Likewise, there's no free trips to Disney, no free "gas for life", and no offshore millionaire who just needs you to set up an account so he can transfer a whole bunch of money over to you.
Anybody who asks you for cash up front to pay the taxes, or delivery fees, or any other phony charges so that you can collect your "grand prize" is a liar.
There is no dying kid in England (or anywhere else, for that matter) who just wants to collect postcards, postage stamps, or e-mails as his dying wish. Honest.
Rosebud? It was a sled. Darth Vadar is Luke Skywalker's father - and Ben Kenobi was his best friend, for a while anyway. Rocky loses, wins, loses & wins, loses his best friend then wins, almost loses his son, then wins - and I just can't force myself to watch the last one. Bruce Willis is dead, but Haley Joel Osment can see him.
That kid in England (Craig Shergold) is real. When he was seven years old he had cancer and wanted to break the Guiness Book of World Records for the number of get well cards received. The previous record being around 1.5 million set in 1988 by another Englishman named Mario Morby.
Craig set a record a year later of over 23 million cards and letters. This was certified by the Guiness people, however they have dropped the catagory for obvious reasons.
At this time his family tried to put the breaks on but to no avail. I myself received a chain letter like appeal to send him a card back in 1990.
I sent it to the noted Urban Mythology professor Jan H. Brunvand at the University of Utah (The Vanishing Hitchhiker and Other Legends) and he replied in a letter which I have before me explaining the whole Urban non-legend of Craig Shergold.
Every so often, one of these myths turns out to be real.
Beta test anyone?
By the way, Craig beat the cancer and is alive and healthy today.
I stand by my original post. There IS no kid dying of cancer looking for postcards, business cards, e-mails, or anything else.
there WAS....
but now there ISN'T.
and the continual influx of mail from people who don't think before they act, or at least ask a question or two first, is doing nothing but causing problems. follow the link....
This has actually already been done like a month ago so you need to visit that site right away because the day after it started I had three calls from them bastards. It's very easy it only takes two minutes if that and saves a whole lot of calls.
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