Hi ALL,

This has gone around several times, but should be reviewed. I think we all will learn something from reading.

Do you really know how to forward e-mails?
50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every E-mail address that has come across his computer.

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:

(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them.

Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the "To:" or "Cc:" fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the "BCC:" (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your "BCC:" option click on where it says "To:" and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose "BCC:" and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to "BCC:" your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

(3) Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.

(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.

A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer, because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. Actually, if you think about it, whose supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports?

And don't believe the ones that say that the email isn't being traced, it just isn't so!

One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen."

Or sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!)

I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either. They get trashed. (could THAT be why I haven't won the lottery yet??)

Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS!

Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com It's really easy to find out if its real or not. If its not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I've been telling friends and relatives this same thing for years!

Whenever I get one of those sob-story emails, I check urbanlegends and snopes for validity. Then I copy/paste the content of the site into a reply to the sender and include a link back for their own reference.

Of course, these same people continue to send me stuff, and I continue to check them out and send them back with a link... maybe one day they'll finally learn to do their own research. These are friends/relatives, not strangers.

Again, thanks for sharing.

Funny you should say that ! . . . I've been doing the same thing for years. I often wonder if they even read them, they just FWD them on . . . Say "La V" whatever the hell that means !

C’est la vie

(say lah VEE)
An expression used to play down some minor disappointment: “So we lost a softball game by twenty-two runs. What can you do; c’est la vie.” From French, meaning “that’s life.”

That was good & useful info. I do alot of that myself & edit out the other peoples addreses so no on else can get ahold of them...