Bill Gates is Sharing His Fortunes Email Hoax

Bill Gates Is Sharing His Fortune!

Sorry, folks. Microsoft and AOL have not merged, they’re not conducting an email beta test, nor has Bill Gates decided to share his hard-earned fortune with people who forward silly chain letters.

Hucksters are at it again; instead of potentially life-threatening Nigerian 419 scams disguised as money-laundering schemes, this one promises generous payments from Bill Gates, Microsoft, and AOL. All you have to do to is forward an email, sit back and collect a couple hundred bucks per email address - NOT!

I’m sure some of you received an email that claims that Bill Gates of Microsoft is “sharing his fortune” with those who forward the email to others (a chain letter that’s been circulating since at least 1999)

According to the bogus email, these corporate giants are conducting an “e-mail beta test” to ensure that “Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program.” Supposedly you will be paid up to $245 per email address to which you forward, with pyramid payouts that continue to provide additional income each time the forwarded email is forwarded. There’s even a personal note at the bottom promising “You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.”

The Money From Microsoft giveaway hoax is one of the most prevalent email hoaxes on the Internet. There are a number of versions of this hoax, all claiming that Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates, will give away money or other benefits in exchange for forwarding emails. In spite of thorough public debunking over several years, people continue to forward these silly emails in the vain hope that Bill will share his fortune.

This aging hoax is still circulating and apparently still convincing email recipients all around the planet that Bill Gates and AOL will send them a stack of money simply for passing on an email. The only way to “track” such an email would be to embed some sort of hidden code in the email. Even if Bill did decide that “sharing his fortune” was something that he wanted to do, I’m pretty confident he wouldn’t go about it in this way. In any case, tracking an email in the way described would raise all sorts of privacy issues. There have been several hoax emails that refer to this email tracking concept, all of them equally nonsensical.
                                                                                                                                   hoax-slayer

Official statement from Microsoft:

REDMOND, Wash., May 12, 1999 - Recently an email has been circulating on the Internet about a new “email tracking system” from Microsoft.

As you may have suspected, this is a hoax and did not originate from Microsoft.

Microsoft does try to investigate the source of these hoaxes and take appropriate action. However, many times the hoaxers take elaborate steps to shield their true identities and we cannot identify them. Privacy and security are very important to us here at Microsoft, and we work every day to build great software for the Internet that keeps information safe, secure and private.

We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Official statement from Bill Gates:

Even more annoying than spam, in some respects, are hoaxes. I’m acutely aware of this because my name was recently attached to a hoax email message that was widely distributed.

People embellished the fraudulent email over time, as it was forwarded from electronic mailbox to electronic mailbox, but an early version read this way:

“My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an e-mail tracing program that traces everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. I am experimenting with this and I need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list will receive $1000 at my expense. Enjoy. Your friend, Bill Gates.”

The bogus message was widely forwarded, which surely led to some disappointment from people who hoped to receive $1,000 for passing along what was essentially a chain letter.

– From “On Spam: Wasting Time on the Internet,” published in 1998

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Daniela Riess
http://www.FreeSuccessKey.Net