What is OmniNerd?

Welcome! OmniNerd's content is generated by you, the reader. Through voting and moderation we strive to highlight the nerdiest of what's around and provide content that's a little more thought provoking than other sites.

Submit New Content

Voting Booth

Given only these non-healthy options, which single serving drink is healthiest?

View Results, All Polls
67 votes, 16 comments
2
Nerd-Its
+ -

How to Embarrass Yourself (and Possibly Lose Your Job)

Pencil blog by Brandon on 08 November 2007, tagged as spam

I've been sent my share of well-intended spam, but today I received probably the most ill-advised message I've ever seen. Hoping to save a missing 13 year old girl, a contractor working for Shell (my employer) forwarded this email along. Not just to me, however, but to everyone in the company working in Houston. We're talking thousands and thousands of Shell employees, here. And over company email.

As usual, I immediately looked up the item on Snopes.com and replied to all with the debunkery. (Yes, debunkery.) It might have been less embarrassing for the person to receive an individual email from me, but there seemed to be a potential security risk involved. (The spam had the potential to harvest emails or infect company property.) Also, judging by the number of emails I received from other employees saying they were just about to do the same thing I did,, chances are he received his fair share of one-on-one emails.

I can picture him holding his knees under his desk right now repeatedly whispering to himself, "I just wanted to help the little girl." Sad? Yes, but sometimes lessons like this need to be taught so they stick.

Star This to Save in Your Profile Favorite
Thread parent sort order:
Highest Voted : Lowest Voted : Oldest : Newest
Thread verbosity:
Expand All : Minimize Replies to Comments
3 Nerd-Its - +
Amazing how many people fall for those by scottb :: NR7

That's not an example I encountered before - and I could easily see how someone might fall for it

The one I've received several times is this one that claims MS will send you money for forwarding the email. Usually the forwarder adds something to the effect of "I don't know if it's true, but it couldn't hurt". Even crazier, I usually get it in an email where the "to" line has a couple of dozen addresses.

It takes very little thought to realize that if you send it to, say 30 people, and they each send it to 30 people, and they send it each to 30 people, that's almost 30 thousand people. At the amounts in the letter, that's not a tens of thousands, it's millions in payout. And of course, the forwarding goes on, so each of those people becomes eligible for their own millions in payments. And what could MS possibly be getting for this multi-billion dollar investment? Amazing.

Posted 08 November 2007, Hide, Reply