Microsoft Beta Test

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For those of you that have been fwd this email it is a hoax .. of course check www.snopes.com
Microsoft/AOL Giveaway


Claim: Internet users can receive a cash reward for forwarding messages to test a Microsoft/AOL e-mail tracking system.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2004]

THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY - IT IS FOR REAL

Subject: PLEEEEEEASE READ!!!! it was on the news!

!!!! It was on the news! Kathy South Alcoa - EHS Maintenance Coordinator Phone: 765/771 - 3547 Pager : 765/420 - 6575

To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages, But this is from my good friend Pearlas Sandborn and she really is an attorney.

If she says that this will work - It will work. After all, What have you got to lose? SORRY EVERYBODY.. JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!! I'm an attorney, And I know the law. 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.


Origins: The above-quoted jape is the most common version of a long-running Internet hoax that has been circulating in one form or another since 1997. The names of the companies involved and the supposed rewards to be had periodically change, but the basic come-on remains the same: fool gullible netizens into endlessly forwarding junk messages to their friends and acquaintances with phony promises of cash and free
merchandise.

This isn't real, it wasn't written up in USA Today (other than in articles about Internet hoaxes), Microsoft and AOL aren't running a tracked "e-mail beta test" with Bill Gates paying people for participating, and Intel and AOL aren't merging. The bottom line is that no matter which incarnation of this silliness one receives, the principle is the same: there's still no free lunch, and big companies aren't going to hand out fabulous vacations, $1000 bills, free trendy clothes, new computers, cases of candies, wads of cash, or new cars just because someone with a functioning Internet connection does them the favor of forwarding an e-mail. Though at first blush, participating in such pie-in-the-sky wishfulness appears perfectly harmless, such participation only serves to clog up already overtaxed resources. Oh yes, it does one other thing: it gives the idjits who cooked up these frauds a great big laugh at your expense.

Last updated: 25 September 2005