Considering how long email and the internet have been around, I can’t understand how people fall for email chain letters that travel thru cyberspace.  The regular offering of

- Microsoft will pay you to send this to everyone you know

- An African Prince will pay you to help him get money from his country

- Warning: Tell everyone you know …..

(Just as an example of the 1,000’s of emails that seem to not go away).

     One of those such emails (Listed Below) is at the heart of today’s post.  Lets start with the idea that NOT EVERYTHING POSTED ON THE INTERNET IS REAL (and no Al Gore did not invent the internet).  The email (of which I removed the name of the person who forwarded it me, as to not call them out) is as follows

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Date: Sunday, March 14, 2010, 7:54 AM
Fw: please read concerning your phone

I dialed ’0′ to check this out, and the operator confirmed that this was correct, so please pass it on.. (l also checked out snopes.com . This is true, and also applies to cell phones!)
PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW

I received a telephone call last evening from an individual identifying himself as an AT&T Service Technician (could also be Telus) who was conducting a test on the telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test I should touch nine (9), zero (0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up.  Luckily, I was suspicious and refused.

Upon contacting the telephone company, I was informed that by pushing 90#, you give the requesting individual full access to your telephone line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your home phone number.

I was further informed that this scam has been originating from many local jails/prisons. DO NOT press 90# for ANYONE…

The GTE Security Department requested that I share this information with EVERYONE I KNOW.

After checking with Verizon they also said it was true, so do not dial 90# for anyone !!!!! PLEASE HIT THAT FORWARD BUTTON AND PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!

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Now the truth about the email concerning #90 on your phone. The email is actually a fake for the most part, even though it claims to have been checked at snops.com. The true link at snops.com is (LINK)http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/jailcall.asp (http://www NULL.snopes NULL.com/fraud/telephone/jailcall NULL.asp) and that shows that only a very small number of people could be affected by this situation and it does not involve home or cell phones. Only people in offices that use older phone systems called PBX that use the #9 to get an outside line before dialing could have an issue with this. So unless you are in an office and use “9” before calling outside numbers the “concerning your phone” email does not affect you.

From snops.com

This specific email has been around since 1998 (and it keeps on ticking like the a certain bunny). Some of the signs that should alert you to the fact that this is a fake are

• “I dialed 0 and the operator confirmed….”  / Really I have never known an operator that can do more than place a call (Old school), and that’s about it, operators are not PR departments and I’m sure if this was a true risk that the phone companies would NOT rely on operators to get the word out .
• “I also checked on snopes.com…..” / OK – Snopes.com is a well known resource for looking for information on scams, not snops.com (and it seems that spelling is an issues with every single one of these emails).  So if this was legit wouldn’t they want to include the link so that we could read more ourselves.  Any legit report will include links when other sites are mentioned (AS in what I did above)
• “PASS IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW….” / Because if you don’t the end of the world will happen (Sarcasm), but anytime that you get the dramatic tell everyone, yet the note includes nothing to back up its claims, should tell you Woooo.
• Note the use of “AT&T service tech” on top of the email but “GTE security department” at the bottom. RED LIGHT!!
• Lastly don’t forget they also talk about Verizon at the bottom of the email / This is just thrown in to make sure you hear as many names (and hopefully one that you use) as possible, so that it sounds official.

So with all that being said, and with the age of the internet that we are in.  Before forwarding that Latest and Greatest Chain Email Letter – Check it out and make sure its real.  Everyone will like their email inboxes a lot more if we could just let some of these email DIE.

Some ways to check –

- Run the subject of the email as a search on Bing or Google search, see what the results are (and I don’t mean just the 1st listed result)

- Go to sites like Snopes.com and do a search for the subject on the site and see what results they give you.

- Use common sense