BS E-Mail Forwards: What do you do?

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:10pm

I still have a few friends who forward on E-mails: Political ones, funny pictures of cats, warnings about screen savers, who knows what all. I just checked my E-mail and got four from one "friend," two of which were right-wing propaganda, one a story about George Bush's visits with the wounded at Ft. Hood that was so poorly written and so riddled with lies I honestly couldn't follow big chunks of it.

So what do YOU do with these? I used to correct the errors and send them back, When I get REALLY tired of it, I click "REPLY ALL" and send the corrections on to the 80 or so other folks who got the message. I wondered what you guys do with this crap?


Updated On: 2/16/10 at 02:10 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:13pm

Depends on the person who sent it.

Depends on the contents. If it's a hoax, sometimes I helpfully inform them of such.

One time a friend sent a forward to find out what kind of girl I would marry and I told said friend the email they sent was heterosexist.

Usually I just delete and ignore.

[Bluemoon]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:15pm

I forward mine to PRS.

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:15pm

Well Phyllis, shoot me! I was curious: What sort of girl WOULD you marry?

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:21pm

Carrie Prejean, obviously.

[tazber]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:22pm

If you had just asked me to remove you from my distribution list, Joe, I would have been happy to do so.

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:25pm

I was afraid if I did that you'd take me off your "guy with I-Phone" pic list.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 2:39pm

Sometimes, for fun, I reply "F*CK YOUR F*CKING SPAM"

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 3:00pm

i generally alter them to include a threat to the president and forward them to the secret service.

see you in 3-5 with good behavior, mom!!!

[AbbaRabbit]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 3:44pm

i really only get those emails from my mom's cousins... they know better than to send me religious or political ones... and i actually like the ones with pictures of cats in them =D

[artscallion]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 3:50pm

Outlook has a function that allows you to set up mail rules. I have one that says if an email contains the word "forward", "forward:", "frwd", "fwd:" or any variation, to return the email to its sender with the following note attached: "This address does not accept forwarded emails. Please remove me from any group lists you may use for mass forwarding of emails. Thanks!"

This way I never have to see the crap. They get the message every time they "forget" and send me an email showing receipts for Michelle Obama's ten $50 steaks. So, sooner or later, they all get the hint and actually think before sending me something. And if they get worked up or insulted, I just tell them "the computer rejects it automatically, don't take it personally."

[Craww]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 4:06pm

My mom gets the absolute worst conservative forwards. At work, from her boss. Pretty sure she's cried (or almost) over this stuff at work, especially when a few deeply racist ones sneak in.

I told her to save them. And the proof of their tax frauds. Just in case.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 4:56pm

If it's a warning about a virus or a new way for people to steal your car or whatever I immediately go to snopes.com. Usually the email turns out to be false and I send the Snopes link to whomever forwarded me the email. On the rare occasions that the warning is indeed true I will pass it on.

I don't mind the emails about cats and stuff. They can be good for a laugh after a day at work.

I don't really read the political stuff. My mom sends it all the time. I usually just open it and close it without reading it. She gets mad if she sees I deleted it. So to keep the peace I pretend to read it.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 6:14pm

I don't get so much of that. I get alot of "You are my dear friend and so special. Please forward this to 10 people who are special in your life"

UGH! I don't have time for that crap. I delete them.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 6:20pm

Put them on a pike & leave them as an example for the others.

I threaten anyone that sends me a text forward that I'll have their number blocked if they do it again. I hate them so much!!

Posted: 2/16/10 at 6:24pm

You can do text forwards? Oh God.

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 10:26pm

You can do text forwards? Oh God. "

Oh God yes! A while ago my friend didn't pay for texting on her phone because she never used it. One day, her friend sent her like 100 forwards in an hour or so...

She got charged for every single one of them.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 10:51pm

I would have made the friend pay my phone bill that month.

They get the message every time they "forget" and send me an email showing receipts for Michelle Obama's ten $50 steaks.

God, those exist?

[geaj]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 11:05pm

I just got one about Michele Obama's staffers and how no one has ever had more. I went to snopes, checked it out, and replied as reply all, with a link! I hate this crap!

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 2/16/10 at 11:18pm

I have a friend who used to forward me the worst, most paranoid, panic-stricken armagheddon-is-imminent emails out there. For two solid years I begged and pleaded with her to stop sending them, to just take me off her list. Nothing worked. I finally had to pick a fight with her in public in front of all our friends and basically embarrass and humiliate her - THAT is what it took to get through to her. She can be really tunnel-vision sometimes.

And yes, we are still very close friends, she apologized later on. She finally DID take me off her forward list. I also managed to get her to check snopes before sending anything to anyone. Most of the time.

Artscallion - do you know if Thunderbird can do that?

[artscallion]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 7:17am

"Artscallion - do you know if Thunderbird can do that?"

Don't know, Humbug. Haven't used Thunderbird.

[siny]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 11:30am

"I just got one about Michele Obama's staffers and how no one has ever had more. I went to snopes, checked it out, and replied as reply all, with a link! I hate this crap!"

I got this crap in email once and one of my FB friends posted it on her page. I emailed both of them with links. What really surprises me is how can anyone believe that Laura Bush had only one staffer or that Hillary only had 3, when she was practically co-president. My FB friend is pretty intelligent otherwise, so I was shocked that she bought this story hook, line and sinker. This must be a sympton of Obama derangement, where extreme hatred for Obama clouds your judgement to the degree where you can't think at all.

Posted: 2/17/10 at 11:35am

An Update:

The E-mail that prompted this post was one about how George Bush rushed to Ft. hood (immediately and without any security or entourage) and met with victims of the Ft. Hood shooting for hours- leaving only when the "White House" heard he was there and demanded he leave. Meanwhile, Obama only came to Ft. Hood for a few minutes, meets with no family or victims except for a photo opportunity and leaves as quickly as possible. Pretty much every part of this story is a lie- other than the fact that both the President and ex-president visited Ft. Hood in the days after the tragedy.

I started to reply with all the corrections (which is what I usually do if it's someone who would like to stay in contact with) but instead just told the sender that the e-mail was full of lies and I wondered why she sent it to me. I ended it with "If Barack Obama is so awful, why do you need to make up stuff about him to complain about?"

Much to my surprise I received two emails in reply- the first, a message apologizing for passing along such an inaccurate message. It never occurred to her to check out the story (it never does) because she thought it "sounded right" and she was stunned when she found out how inaccurate it was. The second e-mail was a message she sent to the people she had sent the original message to, and the person who'd sent it to her, correcting all the errors made. She ended by saying she never realized that a lot of what she passed along was probably just as inaccurate as this had been and she'd be thinking twice before she shared a "Forward" again.

So, I guess people can change and it IS worth knocking this crap down!