Should it read 10 BEST or 10 WORST hoax e-mail of all time??If you have an e-mail account then you must be familiar with emails like Bill Gates sharing his fortune, Microsoft’s lottery promotion, Some one in Nigeria requesting you to be a partner to transfer massive amount of money to his account and many more. How many of you have ever believed these e-mails to be true and took further initiatives like providing required details in the e-mails (in case of Microsoft lottery ) or forwarding the mails to your friends (in case of Bill Gates fortune) as said in them. Many people I know have fallen prey to these false e-mails otherwise known as Hoax e-mails.

A hoax e-mails is something that is not true but create an impression that it is real. Here I am going to summarize a list of top 10 and most prevalent hoaxes of all time:

1. Olympic Torch :

This e-mail warns you about a virus which opens an Olympic torch on your computer and consequently burns the C drive on your hard disk. Watch out yours may be burn too

Please read the attached warning issued today. PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS:

You should be alert during the next days:
Do not open any message with an attached filed called “Invitation” regardless of who sent it.

2. Hotmail hoax

This e-mail tells that due to large number of sign-up for hotmail, it is running out of resources so if some one does not receive this e-mail in his inbox within a month time then his account will be deleted. This is to find out which users are using their hotmail account. Alas I am still able to access my hotmail

Urgent: Please Forward! Hello to everyone from the Hotmail Headquarters! This is just a little test to see who is actively using their email account and in effect deleting all inactive users accounts. This process will make the whole site faster and easier to use for the active users. Now on to what to do with this email.

3. Nokia Is Giving Away Phones For “FREE”

This e-mail claims that Nokia is doing a word of mouth promotion for its product and if you send this mail to X number of people and alsoa copy to a nokia e-mail ID then yuo will be able to receive a phone.

Nokia is trying word-of-mouth advertising to introduce its products.And the reward you receive for advertising for them is a phone free of cost! To receive your free phone all you need to do is send this email out to 8 people (for a free Nokia 6210) or to 20 people (for a free Nokia WAP).Within 2 weeks you will receive a free phone. (They contact you via your email address).

4. Missing child:

There are several of this kind. These e-mails usually contains a picture of a girl or a guy and claim that they are missing. Passing the e-mails may eventually be read by some one who can then find the girl.

I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE. My 9 year old girl, Penny Brown, is missing. She has been missing for now two weeks.. It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone anywhere knows anything, please contact me at: [EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED] I am including a picture of her.V All prayers are appreciated!!

5. E-mail lottery

One of the rapidly circulating lottery e-mail is Microsoft award promotion lottery by Microsoft UK. And this e-mail has fooled many people to believe that they have indeed won a lotetry and they send the required details as requsted by mail.

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lottery Winners International programs held on the 29th of April 2004 Your E-mail address attached to Ticket number 20511465897-6291 with Serial number 472-971103 drew lucky numbers 8-66-97-22-71-64 which consequently won in the 2nd category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum payout of US$ 1,500,000.00 (One Million ,Five hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

6. Bill Gates fortune

This tells that Microsoft and AOL is jointly running a beta test where by Microsoft is going to give away $245 for each copy of e-mail sent from your account. Bill Gates is obviously not so rich to watse his money like this.

Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

7. Orkut is closing

A lady called Diana address this e-mail to Orkut users telling that Orkut is no longer having any name space so they are going to terminate the account of inactive users. Afterwards Otkut will be a paid service. Any takers for this claim???

HEY ITS DIANNA, FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ORKUT,EVERYBODY SORRY FOR
THE INTERRUPTION BUT ORKUT IS CLOSING THE SYSTEM DOWN BECAUSE TOOARE TAKING UP ALL THE NAMES, WE ONLY HAVE 57 NAMES LEFT, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT, DONT SEND THIS MESSAGE, IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR ACCOUNT ,SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST. THIS IS NOT A JOKE, YOU’LL BE SORRY IF YOU DONT SEND IT. THANKS DIRECTOR OF ORKUT, TIM BUISKI. WHOEVER DOESNT SEND THIS MESSAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DEACTIVATED AND IT WILL COST YOU $ 10.00 A MONTH TO USE IT” MANY BOTTERS

8. Huge amount of money in foreign account:

This kind of e-mail has many variations. Usually a manager of any bank will be telling that he discovered an abandoned account with a huge sum of money and he needs a foreign partner to transfer this money. I receive atleast 4-5 of this kind daily. Weired!!weired!!weired!!

I am the manager of bills and exchange at the foriegn remittance department of the (ABN AMRO BANK AMSTERDAM ). I am writting you this letter to ask for your support and co-operation to carry out this transaction. We discovered some abandoned sum $15,500,000(FIFTEEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S DOLLAR ) in an account that belongs to one of our foriegn customer who died along-side his entire family in march this year in a terrorist train bomb blast in Spain some few months ago.Since this development,we have advertised for his next of kin or any close relation to come forward to claim this money,but nobody came yet to apply for the claim.

9. Beautiful mummy

This can be classified as a chain letter rather than a hoax e-mail. it has a picture of a girl which the e-mail claims to be a dead baby which is 80 year old now and still looks alive. This e-mail tells to forward it to X number of people to bring good luck failing which it will bring bad luck and it also gives some example on how people got benefitetd by forwarding it.

10. Enter reverse ATM PIN to dial to police:

This is the most absurd and funny hoax of all I have received. I do not think this will ever be believed by any one. Rite now I do not have the exact e-mail in my account so I am unable to paste the gist here. It tells that if you are ever forced to withdraw money from ATM then you can enter the PIN in reverse manner which will dial to a near by police station and police will come to your rescue. Does it sound funny???

To make yourself aware about hoaxes and do not fall prey, You may wish to visit the following links:

Microsoft’s security How to spot a e-mail hoax Urban legends