gates

You know those emails (and now facebook posts!) that say if you send on the email you’ll get paid thousands of dollars by Bill Gates? Sorry ’bout that. Scam.

Four things to do

Here are four ways you can keep your friends, family and acquaintances un-spammed and happy with you.

1. Don’t yell

Did you know that WHEN YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPITALS it’s considered yelling? Don’t do that. It’s hard to read, and people will yell at you for doing it.

Refrain from panicked email subject lines like PLEEEEASE READ. Most emails with subject lines like that are blatantly spam.

If you want your email opened and given proper respect, use both Upper and Lower case letters.

2. How to send out mass emails without everyone yelling at you

If you send out notes to a group from your regular email carrier and not from your auto-responder, never, ever, ever, EVER use Cc (carbon copy).

ALWAYS use Bcc (blind carbon copy). If your email carrier doesn’t have Bcc, then don’t send out mass notes from it. Period. Find another way. Sign up for an autoresponder system like 1AutomationWiz.com or a mass emailing system like constantcontact.com of one kind or other.

Why? Because down the line, that note that you Cc’d people, which thenceforth went to more people and then more people–every single one of them with every single email address sitting there like lame ducks waiting to get shot, whose recipients passed it on–one day, a spammer is going to see all those lovely lines of email addresses and use them for his spamming (or hers). It’s called email address spam harvesting.

When you use Cc, you have turned into an indirect spammer. Don’t do it. Use Bcc. Got that? Third….

3. Don’t use scammy subject lines

When you get notes with subject lines like PLEEEEASE READ, and they tell you something like Bill Gates can track every email you send and will pay you ten cents or something ridiculous don’t believe it! He can’t track your emails! Good grief! He wouldn’t want to! NO, sorry, he won’t send you any money! And if he could track your emails, isn’t that just a little bit spooky??? Grow up!

4. Check to see if it’s real

Check with snopes.com every time you get a note like that, and you will find that they are NOT for real.

Save yourself the embarrassment of having to write your list and tell them it wasn’t a real email and that you are embarrassed and won’t ever, ever do it again. Don’t send them out in the first place.

What to do when you get an email with PLEEEEASE READ in the subject line?

Hit delete. BEFORE you read it.

No, it really won’t be anything you might miss.

No, it won’t be anything important your far-away cousin sent you.

No, it has not one good thing about it at all–unless you’re a spammer, in which case it will have hundreds of email addresses innocent ignorant people have allowed to circulate endlessly.

Please, do the rest of us a big favor, and be a savvy emailer, OK? Delete those things as fast as you get them, and help keep those addresses out of harm.

Check with snopes.com, OK? Thanks.