The Chain Letter Challenge!

©Judy Vorfeld

Have you ever fallen for a clever urban legend or virus hoax? Then immediately passed it on to your best friends and relatives, or even your clients? Have you later discovered it was a hoax? Did you want to go back and erase it ... using virtual White-Out?

If you communicate with people regularly via the Internet, you may regularly receive and pass on all kinds of false information. You may also create great hardship for people in various parts of the world.

"How can I create hardship for people when I'm a good, sincere person?" you ask. It's easy: just believe every chain letter you receive, even those that start with phrases like "Someone sent this, and I'm not sure it's true, but just in case..." Not only believe them, but immediately pass them on.

"But I'm a caring person," you say, "and I never pass them on unless they'll help someone else."

Perhaps you don't realize that chain letters almost always contain false, misleading, frightening, or foolish messages ... Urban Legends ... Virus Hoaxes. I'm a caring person, too, and I used to pass them on until I discovered most were hoaxes. I also learned that many people throughout the world sacrifice to pay for time spent on the Internet. Receiving chain letters make their lives much more difficult. Usually they have to pay to download every message. Time equals money.

Chain letters almost always end up asking you to forward the information, good thoughts, and/or money immediately. This is supposed to either spread love globally, get or give money, or save the lives of countless innocent people.

How can you tell if it's a hoax? Almost always, there's a call to action. It's usually full of emotions that spur compassion, and suggests immediate forwarding to everyone who needs to know. But some have to do with good luck.

Here's part of one that comes to me frequently: "The origination of this letter is unknown, but it brings good luck to everyone who passes it on. Do not keep this letter. Do not send money. Just forward it to five friends to whom you wish good luck. You will see that something good happens to you four days from now if the chain is not broken."

This sounds nice... but notice that little warning not to break the chain! It makes you responsible for whether or not good things happen to your five friends (and their five friends, and their five friends, etc.) as well as to yourself. Hmmm.

Take a look at The Skeptic's Dictionary - (look under "P" for Pyramid Schemes) which shows a diagram of the effect of a pyramid scheme. Chain letters fit in this category.

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