Category: Hoaxes

It is generally not a good idea to forward Amber Alerts that you receive via your E-Mail Inbox on to friends and family. Here are a few key reasons why:

• About 98% of them are Internet hoaxes. They are not real. They were never real.
• About 98% of these Internet hoaxes are forwarded to you by friends, family, and other reliable sources (with good intentions no doubt).
• Even your friends and family – no matter how smart or computer savvy they are, and no matter what their occupation is – can be duped by an Internet hoax.
• Legitimate Amber alerts that are 1, 2, or 3 years old or more are often forwarded to you for once missing people that are no longer missing. Even long after they have been found and reunited with their families (or worse) the E-Mails continue on endlessly in cyberspace.
• Legitimate Amber alerts usually omit important details and other information such as names, locations, time-lines, and contact information.
• Legitimate Amber alerts usually contain false and misleading information; thus, making them no longer legitimate.

It is best to leave any forwarded Amber alerts sent to you via E-Mail alone, and let the appropriate local and national law enforcement agencies with all of the real facts and vital information to do their job. Don’t try to be a good citizen or a detective and try to find missing persons in this world via the press of the ‘SEND’ button. You are hindering the operations of the professionals that do this type of work full-time.

Last Thursday night we realized that our cell phones would not be instantly inundated with calls from telemarketers if we did not submit our number to the National Do Not Call Registry before a certain deadline. That was (and still is) an Internet hoax.

This Thursday night it’s all about an Amber Alert for a missing 15-year-old boy by the name of Evan Trembley. You are urged to forward an E-Mail (and accompanying picture of Evan) to everyone that you know so that someone – anyone could find him and return him to his Mom.

The fact of the matter is that Evan is a real person, and he is also fine and well. It was actually he himself who started this Internet hoax last Summer (2007) in an effort to become famous online to impress his friends. It worked. He is now Internationally-known. Just don’t go looking for him – unless you live in his neighbourhood.

Read all about this Internet hoax at About.com: Urban Legends.

DON’T believe everything that you read within your E-Mail Inbox. If it doesn’t sound right then it probably isn’t true. If you receive an E-Mail that states that you should forward it on to everyone that you know then that should be the tip-off right there that you are dealing with an Internet hoax. Kill the hoax. Hit the DELETE key !