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Annoyances Blogging Commerce Internet Shopping

Blatant Promotion

Last week on the ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ we exposed a developing hoax in which an E-Mail states that a list of businesses have filed for bankruptcy, so you best run don’t walk to those places ASAP to use your gift cards for them before they become worthless. The list (naturally) includes stores that have not filed for bankruptcy, and future variations of the E-Mail are expected to include even more stores that have not filed for bankruptcy.

An Internet hoax is like gossip. It evolves as it expands.

This week on the ‘Hall-Of-Shame’ it’s all about an E-Mail that’s currently circulating all over the world accusing gas stations of intentionally cheating at their gas pumps by showing more gallons of gas being pumped than what is actually being received by the vehicle (thus inflating the overall cost of the fill-up).

You’re not gonna believe what your local gas station may (or may not) be doing to you right before your very eyes. Grab your crew and be sure to catch this EXPLOSIVE edition of the ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’. It goes LIVE here on the blog shortly after 5 PM EDT here on the U.S. East Coast. You’re not gonna wanna miss it !

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Commerce Hoaxes Internet Money Shopping

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

This is a developing Internet hoax:

The following companies just filed for Bankruptcy

Hollywood Video
Levitz
Sharper Image
Performance Team Freight
Linens n Things
Circuit City
Bed, Bath and Beyond

If you have gift cards from the above list use them ASAP, they will not be valid for much longer.

PASS THE WORD.

Actually 3 out of the 7 companies listed above have not filed for bankruptcy, and future variations of this chain E-Mail over the next several months are expected to include even longer (and growing) lists of companies that have not filed for bankruptcy. These chain E-Mails are intended to intentionally frighten the public and slow down E-Mail servers worldwide with bogus information. Don’t base your day-to-day life decisions on chain E-Mails. Don’t fall prey to Internet hoaxes. Use common sense.

Incidentally just because a company has truly filed for bankruptcy does not mean that they have stopped honoring gift cards (although some do just that).

Read more about it.

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Commerce Driving Hoaxes Internet

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

The following E-Mail was recently circulated all over my workplace. It is a chain-letter with numerous fallacies including exaggerated, incorrect, and bogus information. Variants of this chain-letter have been in existence on the Internet since 1999. The bottom-line is that this is a classic example of a ‘denial-of-service’ chain-letter in which the main intent of it is to bog down E-Mail servers and Inboxes and decrease available Internet bandwidth worldwide. Any E-Mail that encourages you to forward it on to all of your friends is known as a ‘denial-of-service’ E-Mail. Virtually all of these types of E-Mails are Internet hoaxes. They should be deleted upon receipt of them. Do not forward them on, or you will merely add to this ongoing problem on the Internet.

Read more about it.

Subject: Dropping Gas Prices

THIS IS NOT THE ‘DON’T BUY GAS FOR ONE DAY’, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around last April or May! It’s worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer, and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to “hurt” ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you’re probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.19 for regular unleaded in my town.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 – $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here’s the idea: For the rest of this year, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It’s really simple to do! Now, don’t wimp out on me at this point…keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) … and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)…and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all!

(If you don’t understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people…. Well, let’s face it, you just aren’t a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I’ll bet you didn’t think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Keep it going!!!

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Advertising Commerce Internet People

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This is not my web site designing and marketing company, but Chris Day sure does some great work !