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So you
think you’re brave? You must because you’re reading this even after my warning.
Well, fear not. Trust me.
Though
many are wise to the ways of the Internet, there are those who are not. There
are thousands of untrue and outrageous stories about celebrities and
politicians and illnesses and dangerous foods and medicines and aliens and
religions and the list goes on and on and on. Some stories are almost true but a few facts are altered
to suit the agenda of the senders. Some are ancient and do not apply to current
politicians or administrations but politicians and administrations from decades
ago. Many times we read posts about our current president when a little
research finds the same rumor all the way back two or three presidencies---different
politician, same old rumor. Some people just pull these weird stories out to
attack whoever is in office currently. The stories with partial truths get
people with faulty memories then they think “Hey, I heard about that!” Yeah,
twenty years ago. In France, not here.
But the
untrue and half true stories and the “fear factor” posts can actually be
dangerous. A rumor about a celebrity doesn’t hit home half as much as learning
that eating a tomato with salt will form a toxin that will burst an aneurism
(not true, I repeat, not true). The puzzling part of this is why do people not
only believe these stories but pass them on to everyone in their address books?
I suppose they want to protect their family and friends but wouldn’t it be
prudent to look it up first? Doesn’t salt on a tomato sound odd? For all the years people have been eating tomatoes wouldn’t
that information hit the international news broadcasts? There are many websites
that debunk hoaxes and weird stories. Why aren’t more of us taking advantage of
these sites?
I’ve
actually been tricked a time or two. I’m guilty. Some are so well written---and
so frightening---that I have clicked on “forward.” But truly I’ve only done
this less than a handful of times and yet I am the recipient of them almost
every day. There are so many of them it’s a wonder any of the senders ever
leave their homes, ever eat anything, ever touch anything, ever bend, sit,
stand, sleep, bathe, walk outside, or shop.
If my
morning news headlines state a poison bottle of aspirin was found in a store in
my city I presume my neighbors and friends have read or heard about it. But
throughout the course of the day I could possibly mention it when talking to
anyone I know or emailing or social networking. If, however, I receive an email
that someone found an ancient herb in a bottle of aspirin that causes instant
blindness (not true, I repeat, not true), I do NOT pass that one on unless I
look it up. Some are so ludicrous I don’t bother looking them up because I can
tell they are phony. Some are so bad after two sentences I hit “delete.”
Some of
these emails are not only scary but fraudulent as well. I received two this
past year: one from Bank of America and one from Wells Fargo. The Bank of
America email was about my account and it warned me I was the victim of
identity theft and that I needed to immediately, by return email, provide my
Social Security number, credit card numbers, phone numbers, address, and many
other pieces of information so that their “fraud unit” could find the culprits.
Most of the email looked fairly real except the creator couldn’t spell and the
grammar was, well, foreign. I contacted my bank and was given a website to
report the email but was never contacted for follow-up. I think it happens all
the time. The second email was similar but slicker. Again, it looked like an
official Wells Fargo email but it was grammatically correct and there were no
spelling errors. The one giant error that made me laugh however was the fact
that I am not a Wells Fargo customer. I called Wells Fargo and was given a
similar website to report the email but I asked the customer service rep a few
questions and he said it was quite common. By the way, I did not use the phone
numbers provided in the emails and instead looked the banks up on my own.
Calling the phone number provided in the email by the person perpetrating the
crime would not lend itself to resolution. I can only imagine who would be
answering those phone lines!
But those
emails, though harmful and potentially disastrous, do not frighten folks quite
like the scary emails about deadly interactions with salted tomatoes. Emails
that threaten life or limb or our children or homes or pets must be researched.
I’ve received so many emails about what we must not feed our dogs and cats that
had I followed the advice my pets would starve to death. So each time I hear
about another food item my pets
shouldn’t eat or they will DIE I head to a hoax site and check it out. Often
the information is slightly true or partly true in that some dogs have had allergic reactions to certain foods. When you
check percentages it’s small. My sister is allergic to shellfish but her entire
family still eats it. I have a friend who has the infamous peanut allergy but I
can eat peanut butter out of the jar. It’s important to know about genuine
allergens that affect many people but if only a few people are allergic to
celery do we all stop eating it? I know it’s better to be safe than sorry but a
little due diligence, perhaps a call to our doctors and vets (or other experts
depending on the nasty email) might be better than pressing forward and never
eating a tomato sandwich again. Or---it just might be a great way to take off
those last 10 pounds.
I
considered creating a scary email and sending it to everyone in my address book
then sit back and see if it went viral. I finally decided not to do it because
I was afraid too many people would stop eating grapes and crush the grape
industry [pun intended]. My email was about eating grapes after 7 p.m., which
included wine, and male performance---heh heh heh.
[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted by any means without the written p permission
of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]
