I'm sure everybody who has an email account at least once in his/her entire lifetime, received email which requests you to forward in order to raise a certain amount of fund to help so-and-so who're sick or in really bad shape. Do you forward the mail as requested or feel bad when you didn't? Have you ever wondered whether these emails are real?
Well I received these emails all the time and sometimes when I feel pitiful for the ones who are 'asking' for help, I would forward them. However, today I did a little research and made a decision that I will not do that anymore. Here's what I found:
"1. EMAIL. “Such-and-such foundation will donate $1 for each time you forward this email!” – FALSE. FALSE. FALSE.
Before you even consider raising money for charity by forwarding emails take this thought into consideration: How the HELL is the company that plans to “donate” going to know how many times the email was forwarded? See, emails are considered private property. Nobody is allowed to enter your email unless you have given them permission. If a friend, coworker, even spouse enters your email without permission you can sue them for “invasion of privacy”.
Even when a court case arises against a suspected criminal, the company who hosts your email account (yahoo, gmail, Comcast, etc) will NEVER provide information unless a subpoena is sent requiring them to hand over the info. AND even in the event that they ARE sent a subpoena, they can ONLY give the info to a police officer/detective, lawyer or judge; again, this information falls under the privacy act and they are not allowed to give it out; NOT EVEN TO A “CHARITY”.
So with this in mind, please tell me HOW any charity is going to know what YOU do in your PRIVATE EMAIL?
BOTTOM LINE: THERE IS NO WAY TO TRACK WHAT YOU SEND…unless it is subpoenaed. Now, to take this one step further; a subpoena can NOT be sent at random. A court case has to be opened in order for a lawyer to request legal information. A subpoena costs a minimum of $600 and can cost thousands for A SINGLE subpoena. The cost of the subpoena is based on the amount of time it takes to recover the information. Meaning, if a company was to “offer to donate funds” for each email forwarded, they would need to have a reason to open a court case and send subpoenas to the email providers FOR EVERY user in the world to determine if they ever got the email and if they ever forwarded it…
This makes no sense. They would be spending billions and billions to donate a few thousand…? What?
2. TEXT MESSAGE. Again, you’ll see texts stating that popular companies will pay a penny or two for each time a text was forwarded. AGAIN, FALSE. Just like with email, cell phone records are private information that require a subpoena to be released. It is IMPOSSIBLE for any company to find out what you do on your private cellular account. You can send messages, receive messages, etc and nobody will ever know…unless there is a legal need for the information.
3. TWITTER. If you use twitter, you probably have seen people post tweets saying “Retweet this and such-and-such company will donate a penny for each RT” or “So-and-so will donate a penny for each time #topic is posted”. Twitter does not fall under the privacy act. Since Twitter posts are public record, it *is* possible, to an extent that a company *may* be able to count each time a topic was posted. However there are a few doubts I have about this actually working…
A.) Cost. In order for a company to tally the amount of times a #topic was posted they would have to pay someone to search twitter and by hand, tally up each time the topic was posted. This could be an endless job. If the company is donating a penny for each time a topic is posted, depending on how long it takes to tally the topic, they may be paying more in employee wages than the amount of the donation.
B.) Inaccuracy. What about profiles that have been blocked to the public and only allow friends to view them? A large amount of Twitter profiles are set to “private”, so I have no idea how these companies plan to tally the amount of times these people participated in “helping the cause”. How would it be fair to discount people who have chosen to keep their information private but have still helped aid in the supposed donation campaign?
C.) Why aren’t these GIANT companies ADVERTISING their campaigns? Why have none of us ever heard direct from the company who is sponsoring these campaigns that they will be donating?
When companies make large donations, they make sure it is known to the public – it’s kind of a marketing campaign. The company knows that by making a donation they will get tons of free publicity; so they make sure that they broadcast their donation all over the internet, radio, television and newspaper. If a company was planning to make a large donation based on Twitter #topics, you’d think they would announce this on their website and so on.
IN THE END…
Yes, it is likely all a bunch of scams. I have yet to see any “donation” made.
If you see an email or get a test message that talks about donations, you can always contact the company directly and ask if the donation info is legitimate. 99.9% of the time they will have no idea what you are talking about.
If you genuinely do want to help a cause, instead of forwarding scam emails or text messages, research the charity and find out what you can do to help. If you don’t have the finances to donate a dollar, then consider offering your time or expertise.
Please do not forward these scams. You are not only wasting your time but you’re also wasting other peoples time; time that could be used to REALLY help a cause.
I don't like Chinese New Year.
Seriously, I think I hate it.
I really don't like the tradition of getting new clothes, coz they usually cost quite a penny (although I like the discounts which is literally everywhere in town);
I don't like to spend my holidays going back to a strange place where my parents call home when I know exactly where my home lies;
I don't like other people asking me how many ang pows I got coz I know that I'll always get the least;
I don't like the job load before CNY coz it's usually gonna be damn lot until I have to work till midnight every working day;
I don't like it coz everybody is going out of Penang or always busy doing something and that I will always be left alone on my previous holidays;
I don't like to fake a smile at every each of person that I saw and say "Gong Xi Fa Cai" coz if you don't do that, people will think that you're not being polite or to an extent of cursing in some ways; and
I don't like it to take away my Valentine's Day.
I understand that these festivals are essential in promoting certain important values that makes all human live as a society and bond with each other, however some times the traditions, the things-that-you-must-do make me feel so.... so.... tied up and always busy and can't breathe.
And the job load... T.T I think the job load is the trigger to everything... I don't want to spend the last 2 hours of my 23th year on earth doing paperwork I took from my office. But then... I have no choice T.T waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
My Birthday is supposed to be My Greatest Day in a Year~~~ T.T God puh-leeeeease help me find a balanced way of feeling happy while burdened with so much work~~
A normal Thursday, a normal rushing morning as I'm almost late for work, a normal little and plain breakfast session, well despite the whirlwind inside my head everthing seems normal after I woke up.
HOWEVER, after I'm done folding my blanket and my quilt, I picked up my soft toys that I kicked down from my bed during my sleep, I saw a little insect which a lot of people called it "Little Keong", or Devolulu's version: "Keong Zai" crawling away beneath one of my soft toys =.= For those who know me well, you can easily imagine my face would look like this when I see the species of keong zai--->
Congratulations to yikoko for being part of the winning team of the first time ever USM dota competition~!
I wana see replay, eh?
连续两晚都无法一觉到天亮，半夜就被梦整醒， 有点累掉的感觉涅。
或许由于这些日子都在想一些让我无法决定的事情，所以才会令我的睡眠不规律吧。我时常在想，我现在有个定时的工作，有一班不错的朋友，有一些不错的同事，有一位不错的男朋友，每天都开开心心地让我忘了很多烦恼，所以我是否应该就此打住，为我现有的人和物感到满足， 不要再冒险去尝试新的工作环境或寻找薪水更高的工作机会呢?
其实现在身边的朋友们都很不错，很喜欢可以开心得不需要顾及形象放肆大笑的感觉，我想我前世一定是男生 =.= 但是有点讨厌自己被介绍给其他人认识的时候wor……大家都是大学毕业，要不就是还在念书，只有我和一位好友没上过大学。昨晚和好友谈话的时候提起，其实我们俩读书时功课不错，如果家里当初的经济状况允许，我们俩现在也是不懂哪一所大学的毕业生吧 XD 但是现实总与愿违，如今初认识的朋友得知我不是什么工程师或从事任何专行的时候，他那一幅不好意思的表情还真令人难受呢。 如果……我进入新的行业，尝试新事物，会不会就不会这么尴尬呢？
早一阵子想要当教师，但是有人却劝说在这种时势该暂时放弃理想，在现实活下来再打算才是真。>.< 还真矛盾。
为了避免自己再发那些有的没的梦，本小姐想想不可继续任由自己的大脑操控我的梦里人生，非采取行动不可 >.<
昨晚跟哥哥借了空气清新器，睡在刚换好床单的床上，在冷气房里盖了两层被单，然后把大的熊仔们堆在身旁，小的熊熊放在身上……噢，好有安全感呐。而且咋看之下感觉还真梦幻，偶树公主~ 哦呼呼…… 恶梦来吧，Bring it on babeh~
怎知半夜忽然惊醒，发觉自己被熊熊和被单缠着无法动弹 m( O . O)m。
Sweet Dream attempt no.1 ...... Failed.
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