Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000 or a free copy of Windows '98, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation.

There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks.

You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true". Furthermore, just because someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit", does not actually make it true.

There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin. If you are hell-bent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell their stories. None have." That's "none" as in "zero." Not even your friend's cousin.

Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on... withOUT the Neiman Marcus story.

We ALL know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, thank you. We ALL know how many (blanks) it takes to change a light bulb, no thank you

Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?

There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever forward any e-mail containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with virii. Try http://www.norton.com or Computer Virus Myths. And even then, don't forward it. We don't care.

If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you're going straight to Hell.

If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write e-mail, turn off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on UNIX shells can't read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.

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From the SJ Mercury News