Microsoft@Bill Gates email hoax!

Hey there everyone. I know this topic is not new among us and it has been circulating around for quite sometime but still to my surprise, it landed in my email inbox again! Yea, we all heard about Bill Gates is SHARING his fortune in an email where you forward those email for software testing because Bill Gates has installed a tracking software inside it! Is this true? Let's see a few example of this email.

Hoax 1: "I'm forwarding a forwarded message...read on, it it works you may get $$ from Microsoft. Certainly Bill has enough to share-maybe today we'll be blessed financially! I am forwarding this because the person who sent it to me is a good friend and does not send me junk. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet company and in an effort 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 week time period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $5.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $3.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $1.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a check. I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my e-mail and within days, I received a check for $800.00."

Hoax 2: "Dear Friends, Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is 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 week 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 cheque. Regards. Chinu! 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 within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford 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 US$10,000.00."

What?! This is obviously a hoax! Try to think again. We're talking Microsoft here! A software giant has installed like a super advance software tracking device and doing some kind of software testing where Bill Gates himself is willing to PAY people for it? Oh, c'mon! Again, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They have the best facilities and enough money to run a software testing on their own. They don't need to spend their money from all this but instead they want to make profit from it. Just to kill this hoax, read the following statements.

An official statement from Microsoft:

REDMOND, Wash., May 12, 1999 - Recently an email has been circulating on the Internet about a new “email tracking system” from Microsoft. As you may have suspected, this is a hoax and did not originate from Microsoft. Microsoft does try to investigate the source of these hoaxes and take appropriate action. However, many times the hoaxers take elaborate steps to shield their true identities and we cannot identify them. Privacy and security are very important to us here at Microsoft, and we work every day to build great software for the Internet that keeps information safe, secure and private. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

For an assurance, here's a statement from the man, Bill Gates, himself:

"Even more annoying than spam, in some respects, are hoaxes. I'm actually aware of this because my name was recently attached to a hoax email message that was widely distributed. People embellished the fraudulent email over time, as it was forwarded from electronic mailbox to electronic mailbox, but an early version read this way: "My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an e-mail tracing program that traces everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. I am experimenting with this and I need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list will receive $1000 at my expense. Enjoy. Your friend, Bill Gates." The bogus message was widely forwarded, which surely led to some disappointment from people who hoped to receive $1,000 for passing along what was essentially a chain letter." – From “On Spam: Wasting Time on the Internet,” published in 1998

So what should you do if you received an email hoax from 'Bill Gates'? Here's an interesting method I found from a website.

Copy-and-Paste Response to "Bill Gates Is Sharing His Fortune"

Re: Bill Gates Is Sharing His Fortune This is to inform you that you have forwarded a well-known email hoax. Contrary to what the message claims, Bill Gates is NOT sharing his fortune with people who spam their friends with bogus messages. Also, Microsoft is NOT beta testing a program for tracking chain emails, nor will you receive $5 every time you forward this hoax. For more information, see: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blmsaol.htm In most cases it only takes a few minutes of research to verify the claims in forwarded emails such as this one. Please be considerate enough to do so in the future. Thanks for your kind attention.

Next time if you received any more of those email hoax again, just dump it in the recycle bin would the best solution to your worries! Cheers!