The Government doesn’t accept emails for petitions … really.
Have you ever gotten one of those emails that requests you to sign a petition? You were so strongly in favor of the issue that you immediately put your name on it, and sent it to everyone on your email list? How about “send this to 10 people and it will bring you good luck?" I have. I rarely forward anything but once in a while one gets through to me and I do it, because I feel it speaks to something that is important to me.
Well I’ve just discovered they don’t do any good. In fact “they” are in reality, marketing companies who are trying to verify emails so they can use your address for --- you guessed it more spam. This is also true of many prayer chains, so be very careful of anything you ad your name to and that you forward to your email addresses. Chances are your friends won’t be saying thank you.
Here’s a tip my good friend Barb suggested and I have adopted myself when I find something I really, really want to send along. Just highlight it, copy it, and paste it, in to a separate file and delete the part that says if you don’t send this to X number of people in the next 10 minutes your left ear will fall off ... you know the ones. You can also just copy it directly on to your email and send it along to who ever you think will benefit from it.
Another thing you can do that stops the passing along of your friends email addresses … if it comes on an attachment to your email. Just click on the attachment itself and paste it on to a new email. If you just hold it over the actual body of your email it will go where it needs to. (This works well if pictures are involved because sometimes the pictures don’t transfer if you try to paste them directly onto a new email), and it’s perfect for all those video’s that are so funny to watch. Instantly you have eliminated sending all those forwards. They will get the document or video, without hundreds of other peoples email addresses appearing in the sent part of every forward you have to click on before you get to the actual video or message.
This suggestion came from my husband. He had me adopt it years ago when I first learned how to “send” things to people. And for a totally non-techy person like me it was a very big help. Don’t put your list of email addresses in the “send” category of your email for the world and all those snoopy marketers and spam people to see. Put them in the Blind Carbon Copy or the BCC section. You can actually “send” the email to yourself, by putting your address in the send box. That way no one gets to see the addresses you are sending to. It protects the privacy of your friend’s emails, and keeps you from being the one that helps to get them on spam lists everywhere, and believe me, they will be very grateful. Especially if they get a couple of hundred emails a day like I do.
And last but not least, after doing some checking I found out that the government doesn’t accept emails for petitions. In fact without your signature it isn’t even considered a petition. So don’t forward any more “petitions” to anyone when they come in the form of an email. Instead go to http://www.snopes.com and check it out. You can find the history of many of those emails. It’s a wonderful way to find out if what you are forwarding along is real, or if it’s just a hoax. Bookmark that address, it could help save you a great deal of spam in the future.
Have a Beautiful Day, Until later …
Heart Hugs,
Susan Marie