Hoax Email

Message claims that you can help pay medical costs for baby Manuela, a child with a rare disease who needs an operation, just by forwarding the email to at least three people.

This message is a hoax. No money will be raised by forwarding an email. Any message that makes such a claim is almost certainly bogus. The photographs attached to this message appear to be genuine. However, regardless of the severity of this unidentified child's condition, rest assured that forwarding this message will not help her in anyway whatsoever.


Example
Subject: FW: FOTOS MANUELA - help

Dear All

Please see pics below:

The mother is 29 years old her baby girl by the name Manuela has a very rare disease and she needs to have an operation but the parents cannot afford, so if you can send at least to three people this E-mail she will get 32 centimos per E-mail.

[Photographs of baby with severe skin condition removed]



Detailed Analysis
This message, which includes a series of photographs depicting a baby with a severe skin condition or burns, claims that you can pay her medical bills simply by sending on the email. The email claims that the child - identified only as "Manuela" - will receive 32 centimos per email if it is forwarded to three or more recipients.

However, the claims in the email are untrue. In fact, this message is just one more in a long line of similar hoaxes that claim that a sick child will receive donations every time a particular message is forwarded. Any message that makes such a claim is certain to be a hoax. No legitimate company or charitable organization is ever likely to participate in a fund-raising scheme that is based on how many times an email is forwarded. Any such claim is simply absurd. As is often the case in such hoaxes, the message does not provide any means of verifying the information in the message. In fact, this variant of the hoax is even vaguer than others of its ilk in that the entity supposedly donating the 32 centimos is not even identified. Nor is the child identified other than by her first name.

Moreover, even in the extremely unlikely event that some entity did agree to participate in such a ridiculous charity scheme there would be simply no reliable method of tracking how many times the message was actually forwarded. Thus, accurately tracking how much money was due to be donated would be virtually impossible.

This version of the hoax comes with a series of photographs showing a baby with a severe skin condition that may be the result of disease or very serious burns. The photographs themselves appear to be genuine. I have not included copies of these disturbing images in this article, because the moronic and heartless prankster who created this hoax may well have used them without the permission or knowledge of the baby's family.

With so little information to go on, it is difficult to identify the child in the photographs or report on her current condition. However, regardless of this poor child's current status, rest assured that forwarding this email will do nothing whatsoever to aid her predicament. "Manuela" will not receive one single centimo as a result of forwarding this message. In fact, the continued circulation of the child's images may do no more than add to the distress of her family and carers.

Charity prank emails of this nature are among the most heinous and nasty of all Internet hoaxes. If you receive a message that claims that money will be raised to help a sick child just by forwarding an email, please help to stop its continued circulation. Do not forward the message to others. And take a moment to let the sender know that the message is a hoax.