Chain emails. Confirm or scam?

How many of receive email almost daily asking for help or to signan E-Petition of some kind.
Here is where we can post the details of the email and try and find out if it is true, a scam or just a waste of time.
I am not so much interested in Nigeerians wanting to hide thier millions or a lottery win yet to be claimed, but more the tear jerking missing persons or save an animal type story.
The latest one I recieved is about a dog named tammy burned alive asking me to sign a petition to have the owners jailed..

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

I was horrified and shocked to see the article in the Daily Voice
yesterday about Tammy, a dog that had been burnt so badly by her owners.

The owners wanted to punish her for jumping over the wall into the
neighbours place. They fetched her and put her in her kennel and set it
alight.

I am not sure how many of you have seen the pictures. As an animal lover
it brought tears to my eyes because she was burnt so badly. The SPCA had
to put her down.

The SPCA have removed the other 2 dogs from these people and are pressing
criminal charges against them. I am therefore appealing to all animal
lovers to please add your name to the petition so that the owners are
given the maximum punishment befitting to them.

I have spoken with the Daily Voice, and we have an agreement that they
will forward the signatures to the SPCA to use in the prosecution of these
people. PLEASE, if you agree, please sign the petition and forward to as
many contacts as possible.

While the story is sad, is it always possible to know if it is true or just someone out for kicks to see how far the email can go?

Does anyone know of this story? Is it true? Do you have any others similar you would like confirmed or busted?

Edit to get Nigeerian past auto filter

[edit on 18/11/2008 by VIKINGANT]

reply to post by VIKINGANT

Any time I get an email that has been forwarded to me and a million other people, I just delete it. I can't stand chain emails. Personal pet peeve of mine.

reply to post by Karlhungis


I couldn't agree more. I especially hate those "good luck fairy" type ones.
What I do like whowever, is being able to hit "reply all" and tell the sender it is a hoax and not to waste my time...

I checked on Snopesfor you.. They had something about Tammy in their forums from 2006.. It linked to this article : this article

[edit on 11/18/08 by SugarJ]

[edit on 11/18/08 by SugarJ]

LOL ok.. i cant get the THIS ARTICLE to stop appearing 2x.. * sigh *.. Ignore the first one..

[edit on 11/18/08 by SugarJ]

I wish I had my old emails, before the desktop crashed...I had quite a few funny ones I saved.

But the "send this to so many" I immediately delete.

And what's with this Snopes? I get some quite often...."Snopes said this was true" or "I checked this out on Snopes", but then two weeks later read how it was a big rumor/scam. I wish I had some examples, but I don't.

So basically I added nothing to the thread. bye

Rush

Originally posted by hsur2112
I wish I had my old emails, before the desktop crashed...I had quite a few funny ones I saved.

But the "send this to so many" I immediately delete.

And what's with this Snopes? I get some quite often...."Snopes said this was true" or "I checked this out on Snopes", but then two weeks later read how it was a big rumor/scam. I wish I had some examples, but I don't.

So basically I added nothing to the thread. bye

Rush

LOL rush.. here is a little background on Snopes (They are usually the ones to say something is a fraud. )

The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. ( of course that is their description )

Thanks SugarJ. I should have thought of Snopes, but then agan, are they ALWAYS accurate? and I guess sometimes they don't always have the 'latest' pranks. This one being around since '06 though is different.
I had never heard this one though.
The funny thing is the different dogs (Named Tammy) with different abuse and torture. But I guess that is a typical example of how these things evolve.

Rush,
I would suggest if you receive an email and it tells you

...."Snopes said this was true" or "I checked this out on Snopes"

It would be worth going to snopes and checking it out yourself...I would.

I have received those emails that claim you either have an unclaimed lotto jackpot or untold millions in some Nigeerian account. I haven't got any of those email recently though. The chain emails that I get now are from the Yahoo Groups that I am a member of.