Categories
Driving Hoaxes Internet

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

Have you received this E-Mail ?

Cheating at Gas Pumps

This is a true story, so read it carefully. On April 24, 2008, I stopped at a Kangaroo BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville, GA. My truck’s gas gage was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 14 gallon’s to fill it up.

When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got.

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:

Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only check the pump. It doesn’t matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the Georgia Agriculture Department, and direct your comments to Tommy Irvin, Commissioner. In other states contact proper authorities.

Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates.

In case you haven’t already figured it out this is another Internet hoax. The key phrases ‘This is a true story’, ‘so read it carefully’, and ‘Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book’ are the obvious tip-offs that while there may be a few facts and maybe even some useful tips sprinkled in to the E-Mail here and there for effect it is still an Internet hoax. It is not a true story. It never happened.

Read more about it.

Categories
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.

Categories
Hoaxes Internet Television Travel

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

Brazil-Mid-Air-1

Brazil-Mid-Air-2

Last month a B737 had a mid air collision with a Embraer Legacy while cruising at 35,000 feet over South America. The Embraer Legacy, though seriously damaged, with the winglet ripped off, managed to make a landing at a nearby airstrip in the midst of the Amazon jungle. The crew and passengers of the Embraer Legacy had no idea what they had hit. The B737, however, crashed killing all crew and passengers on board.

The two photos attached above were apparently taken by one of the passengers in the B737, after the collision and before the aircraft crashed. The photos were retrieved from the camera’s memory stick. You will never get to see photos like this. In the first photo there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft. In the second photo one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole.

THIS IS A HOAX !

You may have seen these pictures before. In fact you may have seen them a full two years before the air disaster even occurred in September 2006. You see these pictures are actually video captures from the September 2004 pilot episode of “Lost” on ABC-TV !

Read more about it, and don’t believe everything that you receive within your E-Mail’s Inbox – even if it was sent to you by a trusted co-worker, friend, or relative. Internet hoaxes dupe very intelligent people all the time. If it sounds (or looks) too unbelievable to be true then it probably isn’t true.

Categories
Driving Hoaxes Internet Travel

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

BUYCOTT – BUY ALL of your gas from Citgo.

BOYCOTT – DON’T BUY ANY of your gas from Citgo.

Dueling E-Mails have been in constant circulation over the past couple of years urging you to buy all of your gasoline from Citgo – or urging you to do the complete opposite. There are many different E-Mail variations of both sides of this issue, and in all cases the myriad of reasons given are untrue, exaggerated, or just plain fabricated.

Here’s what we know is true. Citgo is owned by the national oil company of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuela. Lots of different oil companies buy their crude oil from Venezuela – including the gas station that you would probably spend your money at in lieu of Citgo – which incidentally has its world headquarters right here in the U.S. – in Houston Texas. Citgo employs some 4,000 people, and they supply some 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline. Boycotting any particular gas station or gas brand only serves to possibly put a tiny economic ding towards the local neighbourhood franchise owner and his or her personal staff of that gas station or gas brand – fellow Americans like you and me – only if you had previously frequented that station or brand on a regular basis. If you don’t want to support the oil companies – both domestic and international – then walk, run, or pedal a bicycle. If you want to buy less gas then drive more responsibly. The fact of the matter is that boycotts (of anything) are virtually irrelevant and produce little to no results – positive or negative. When was the last successful boycott of anything here in the U.S. in our history ?

Read how Snopes explains both sides of this issue.