Why Forward Junk Chain Letter Emails?

Every week friends and family members send me junk chain letter emails.

Bill Gates will pay you to forward this.

A fairy will grant your wish if you send to 1,000 friends.

Some kitten’s nose will fall off if you don’t.

Why do people forward these things?

These emails are annoying but I know I am more annoying. I put each one through Snopes and reply. Futile, irritating, and ultimately as much a waste of time as the original.

“There is no harm in it” I hear you cry. Well, probably not much harm over and above spreading potentially dubious information. I imagine harvesting those emails (each email tends to have tons of email addresses right there on the “to” line) is a rich source for spammers.

I don’t know if it is my imagination but these emails tend to arrive just before a bump in the number of spams. Coincidence?

That brings me back to the point, other than the “social gaming” aspect (seeing how far your lie can spread), why do people send these things?

I would really like to know the answer. Anyone know?

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Sad

Comments

16 Responses to “Why Forward Junk Chain Letter Emails?”

  1. Rhys on April 8th, 2008 1:52 pm

    Beats me, but I’d love to also know why.

  2. nishu on April 8th, 2008 1:58 pm

    Because “There is no harm in it”
    And “It is good if someway someone we don’t know is helped”
    And “I don’t want to be cursed by any e-mail”

    :D

  3. Chris Garrett on April 8th, 2008 2:05 pm

    @Rhys – I am not sure the people who forward them know :)

    @Nishu – Do people really believe in email curses? :)

  4. Dean on April 8th, 2008 2:06 pm

    I know they’ve been around for years, I’ve recieved the same email literally years apart, imagine how many email address have been stuck on the bottom of those.

    I never thought about it as a method for harvesting valid addresses, but that’s a very good motive for sending them out. The only thing is how can you guarantee they’ll return to you with the emails attached?

    I have a similar question about emails claiming to sell me watches, medicines and software. I know it’s something to do with Bandwidth harvesting, but I’m unsure how.

    Organised Criminals don’t want to steal your bank details anymore, that’s low hanging fruit – they want to get access to your bandwidth, apparently you can buy the bandwidth of millions of users for half an hour for a couple of thousand pounds from dodgy sources. This can then be used to hold major companies to ransom, “Either pay us a million dollars or we’ll hit your site with so much traffic it will crash for hours” Imagine how much an hours downtime would cost Amazon or Bet365.

  5. Dean on April 8th, 2008 2:12 pm

    If there is such a thing as an email curse I’d be dead a long time ago – I’ve never forwarded a spam. Email or text, I’ve binned hundreds.

    I may be cursed but Karma is keeping my head above water :0)

  6. linkerjpatrick on April 8th, 2008 3:10 pm

    It annoys me to no end but I can almost forgive the typical computer newbie but what makes me ANGRY is the people who keep sending the stuff even after being directed to Snopes links over and over again. It got to the point that I never receive e-mail from some people we know and enjoy being with in real life because I put them on my e-mail black list because they never sent me any e-mail to ask how I was doing, etc but rather sent nothing but this stuff as part of their mile long cc list.

  7. Brad K. on April 8th, 2008 4:36 pm

    The chain letter originated in snail mail. The US Post Office outlawed them – they are now officially a federal crime.

    I imagine the first chain letters stuck in the ‘do this or ‘ blah, blah so their insight, their secret solution, their humor, would be passed on. A social form of viral marketing, abusive style. I won’t forward one.

    And I consider sending something like that to be cruel to the receiver. You have just attempted to bully someone, that must now decide to risk their soul, their firstborn, or their job by *believing* the thing is nonsense, instead of trusting the sender to be respectful. I see all kinds of spiritual harm being done.

    The reason the Post Office cared, was because the thing is a pyramid scheme. One letter becomes 10, becomes 100, etc. The bulk of the things, and the increased ability to embed scams and fraud schemes, made much work for letter carriers and their investigators. And harmed innocent people. The same thing happens with chain emails. People have to at least examine the title and sender to decide if they want to open the thing, then read it. Multiply by 20, 400, and 8000 and this adds to a significant waste of time and of server space and Internet backbone transfer bandwidth. And, as you say, there is the window of opportunity for anyone from the author onward to add a virus – or anyone with an infected computer to unknowingly harvest email addresses for spammers or add their infection to the ongoing chain email.

  8. Tony on April 8th, 2008 6:38 pm

    Because they have nothing better to do… I hate the chain emails and typically delete them unless they are funny animals. The older generation is very prone to fire these emails around when they get the internet and email for the first time.

  9. adelle on April 9th, 2008 2:57 am

    They do have nothing better to do, or they are diluted in thinking that Bill Gates will really “pay it forward”. HA! And the sad thing is, some of my friends still forward me these emails, wish I could spam them :)

  10. Birdsong on April 9th, 2008 5:00 am

    Misery loves company?

  11. Chris Garrett on April 10th, 2008 1:33 pm

    Thanks all, it seems there are a number of theories. Would be nice if one day we could solve this problem!

  12. kim on July 23rd, 2008 3:00 pm

    Send all your friends this one
    Yes I love you

    Yes you are my Friend, my Sister my Angel

    Yes I love those Pass it on and fill in the blank Emails

    Yes I support your causes

    Yes I laugh at all the funny pictures you send

    Yes I want to make money by forwarding those Bill Gates emails

    However…

    I now receive over 300 spam emails per day and some of them are pornographic. I know you didn’t mean for it to happen but, I am no longer responding so…

    Call me if you love me

    Call me if you are my friend, my sister, my angel

    Mail me those pass it ons

    Call me for a donation to your causes

    Send me funny pictures in a personal email

    Send me a Lotto ticket if you want me to get rich…I will split it with you

    Pass this on to all …one by one if you have the time..I don’t so, you are all getting this in a group email which will most likely have the same effect as the ones you have sent me over time and take me OFF YOUR LISTS

    Love and kisses, Your name here

  13. Val Gal on August 27th, 2008 6:33 am

    I have no idea why people send these and believe them! What irritates me most is the barrage of these BS emails I get from family and friends, but they NEVER type one word to ask me how I am doing, etc. I even try to COMMUNICATE with the ones who send these insipid emails, I will say things like, “This email is false according to Snopes.com, but I how are things going, how are you and your family?” I don’t get one word back. I find them rude and if you only want to forward me silly emails and don’t bother to actually “talk” to me don’t waste your time. I let them know that–it sure cut down on the stupid emails! :-)

  14. Pauloo on September 22nd, 2008 4:01 pm

    I love to reply to these emails letting the sender know about snopes. But the trick is to hit the “reply to all” button, not just the “reply” button. This way the gentle admonition goes to everyone your sister-in-law sent the email to, embarrassing her for her gullibility in falling for it.

    Trust me. After a few times, you’ll get taken off the ‘list’

    Another solution is to set up a “rule” in Outlook (not sure about other email handlers) that rejects any email with the word “fwd:” in the subject line. It will automatically return the email to the sender with a note you set up.

    My note says something to the effect of ” This address does not accept forwarded email. Please remove me from all group lists you use to forward emails. This note is automatically generated, so please don’t take it personally.”

    This way they get the point without being hurt.

  15. Eric on June 27th, 2009 9:53 pm

    Maybe what someone should do, is start spamming people and in the letter say: ps i know all your email adressess because of chainletters =)

    Then, people might stop sending chainletters because they dont want spammers and it will all end.

  16. Dimitris on July 8th, 2009 10:23 pm

    A different reason of why you shouldn’t forward:

    Forwarding ‘harmless’ looking emails can also be the trigger of a ‘Denial of Service Attack’, which can effectively make mail servers and web sites crash. This page explains how it works: http://community.tigranetworks.co.uk/blogs/tigranetworks/archive/2008/01/11/why-you-shouldn-t-forward-chain-email.aspx

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