Anybody get this email? I just got it today, I can't figure out the scam.

Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk
letter. Bill Gates 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.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can
and will track it
( If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks
time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to,
Microsoft will pay you
$245.00 For every person that you sent it to that
forwards it on, Microsoft
will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that
receives it, You will
be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will
contact you for your
address and then send you a check.
Regards.


I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after
receiving this
e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for
my address and
withindays, I receive a check for $24,800.00. You need
to respond before the
beta testing is over. If anyone can affoard this, Bill
gates is the man.
It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this
to as many people
as possible. You are bound to get at least $10,000.00.
We're not going to
help them out with their e-mail beta test without
getting a little something
for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a
few months ago. When
i went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed
me her check. It was
for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid in full"
Like i said before, I know the law, and this is for
real.
Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would
make them the
largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that
AOL remains the
most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an
e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Intel can and
will track it( if
you are a Microsoft Windows user)for a two week time
period.
TRy it; What have you got to lose????

I deleted a couple names to protect the gullible, I mean, innocent.

I can't believe how I got this answer. Get this:
I forwarded the email to my google account. When I opened the mail in google, this link appeared as an ad. I think that's hysterical.
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/billgates2.html
Also this one:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/aol.and.intel.hoax.html

There is some other interesting info on this hoax that has been circulating for years at http://netsquirrel.com/combatkit/gates.html.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

Very interesting, thanks. I still can't get over how my gmail's spying on me got me the answer so fast!

That is interesting. As far as the original question, there really isn't any scam in the sense of the perpetrator profitting in any way other than just laughing at all the gullible folks firing this thing off to their entire address list and then waiting by the mailbox for a check.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

Actually, the person who sent it to me just got chewed out by someone in his company for cluttering up their email system with a blatant hoax.
I'm thinking the next time I get a suspicious email, I'll immediately forward it to my gmail account, see what happens.

I have used this site for a few years to check on the validity of some of the stuff people forward on a regular basis: http://snopes.com/.

I found through here, that the shark jumping by the helicopter was bogus, the iceberg photo was bogus, the Bill Gates scam has been going on for years as well as many others.

I've not done the GMail thing as I've been concerned re: the privacy issues. It's bad enough already with some spam using my name and (old) address in the subject matter on emails. In a way, that spying thing was useful in this case, but I can see it getting quickly out of hand!

_________________

Snopes is very good and I have also used Urban Legends to debunk quite a number. I suspect that a couple of folks quit sending me email because every time that they did I sent them a reference debunking it. Some folks just want things to be true and don't want to be confused with the facts.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

There are several variations of the same thing that have been going around for years. It is no different then chain letters or when people forward virus warnings which didn't come from an actual anti-virus company. The amount of traffic generated by it, not only makes it spam but in a way it ends up acting like a virus. Instead of being self replicating, well meaning people are the engine generating it.