Tired of email hoaxes? Maybe this will help

photo credit: …artgeek…

Okay, this doesn’t really have much to do with personal finance—other than to address the amount of time (and thus money) wasted by people who forward hoax emails.

But wouldn’t it be lovely to send them something like this?

Dear Friend/Relative/Acquaintance/Random Person:

You’re getting this message because you recently forwarded an email that is, in fact, a complete hoax.

In the future, you can use an urban legend site such as Snopes.com to check out the veracity of such claims so you don’t embarrass yourself by passing them along.

Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that someone who falls for one of these hoaxes is bound to fall for more, and will refuse to take the few seconds required to check them out.

If that’s the case for you, please remove me from your mass mailing lists.

If you decide to ignore this request, remember that as your friend/relative/acquaintance/random correspondent, I probably know embarrassing secrets about you. If I don’t, I can make something up. Because you inevitably failed to use the “bcc” function when you hit “forward,” I now have all your friends’ email addresses as well. I will be happy to share your embarrassing secrets with them.

Otherwise, it was great to hear from you.